"The doctor, eh?" He shook his head then a little dubiously. "This physician attended the girl while she was confined?"
"I think so."
"M-m. I see here where we have recorded that your father-in-law claims that the girl was neglected; didn't have proper medical attention. What about this? Have you any knowledge as to how many visits this doctor made to the bedside of this girl when she was sick? Any knowledge of what kind of bill was rendered by him?"
"I hear that his bill amounted to something like two hundred dollars."
"Two hundred! Great Scott! And for a dead baby! Gee! We'll have to keep away from neglect as an excuse. That's a fact. No jury will believe such a statement if that fellow shows where he's paid such a bill as that!"
Glavis shifted uneasily. He was seeing another side of the controversy. Before he had only seen one side of it, and that side was as the Reverend had had him see it.
"You send or bring the girl down here tomorrow. It will be up to her to keep her father out of jail, that's all. It will be up to her to convince the court that she never loved this man, that all he did for her was by persuasion, and that her father only followed her instructions. In short, it's almost directly up to her; for the plaintiff has certainly got the goods on her dad if he can prove that she ever loved him."
Glavis was much disturbed when he went home. For the first time he was able to appreciate the full circumstances. It would be up to Orlean to save her father, and that he could see. He would take her to the lawyer, and have her carefully drilled. The success for them depended on her; on her falsifying to the court, for it could not be otherwise. For her to testify that she did not love—and had never loved Jean Baptiste, he knew would be a deliberate falsehood. It worried him, but he had to go through with it.
He accompanied her to the lawyer's office as agreed, and there she was made to understand the gravity of the situation, that everything depended on her statements, and her statements only.
Her father arrived the following day, and at the attorney's office in company with Orlean and Glavis, he was impressed with the nature of the defense. All were finally drilled in their course of action.