“Miss—Miss Porter, I met a friend of yours this morning. I met him under peculiar circumstances. We had some words, I regret to say, and he left this with me.” The plump, dirty hand drew a blue envelope from McNally's coat pocket. “It has seemed to me that where your father's honor was as seriously involved as in this matter, you should have followed some other course than that of traitor.”
In his excitement, McNally misunderstood Katherine's silence.
“You have deliberately drawn out your father and me that you might aid our opponents. I have watched you—I have seen it—it is not your fault that we are not ruined—and for the sake of a man that I caught spying on us this morning, sneaking through the bushes in the dark—”
There was a groan from the doorway. Porter stood there with one hand over his eyes. Katherine looked for an instant, then she brushed past McNally, and with one arm about her father she called to the Captain, who stood at the other side of the waiting room. He came at once.
“Captain,” she said, “I must ask you to take care of my father. Please telephone for a doctor and a closed carriage, and see that he is sent home at once. I shall drive there in the trap to prepare for him. Don't let this man”—she turned contemptuously toward McNally—“speak to him or excite him in any way. Will you do this?” As she spoke her face softened, and she held out her hand. The Captain took it.
“Yes, Miss Porter, I will take care of him.”
Katherine, without looking again at McNally, walked to the door and called for her trap. As she waited on the steps, a newsboy came running down the walk, crying:—
“Nine o'clock Extry! All 'bout M. & T. riot!”
Katherine stopped him and bought a paper. The black headings told the story tersely, but one item stood out with vivid distinctness. She read, “Harvey West Disappears—Supposed that He Was Kidnapped—His Followers Swear Vengeance—Rumored that He Is Hidden Near The Oakwood Club.” For a moment the blood left her face, and her nerves tightened, but when the trap was pulled up she was herself, and the smile she gave the soldier in charge brought forth an earnest but amateurish salute.
Then Katherine drove home—it was her duty to go home. But, her duty done, she would drive straight to the Oakwood Club.