After a moment she leaned back in his arms.
"I'm so happy--so happy! Forgive me, daddy dear, that I could doubt you even for a minute."
"How could you help it? They say the evidence against me is very strong."
"I should have believed you innocent against all the evidence in the world! And I do, and shall--no matter what they may say!"
"Bless you, Katherine!"
"But come--tell me how it all came about. But, first, let's brighten up the room a little."
So great was her relief that her spirits had risen as though some positive blessing had befallen her. She crossed lightly to the big bay window, raised the shades and threw up the sashes. The sunlight slanted down into the room and lay in a dazzling yellow square upon the floor. The soft breeze sighed through the two tall pines without and bore into them the perfumed freshness of the spring.
"There now, isn't that better?" she said, smiling brightly.
"That's just what your home-coming has done for me," he said gratefully--"let in the sunlight."
"Come, come--don't try to turn the head of your offspring with flattery! Now, sir, sit down," and she pointed to a chair at his desk, which stood within the bay window.
"First,"--with his gentle smile--"if I may, I'd like to take a look at my daughter."
"I suppose a father's wish is a daughter's command," she complained.
"So go ahead."
He moved to the window, so that the light fell full upon her, and for a long moment gazed into her face. The brow was low and broad. Over the white temples the heavy dark hair waved softly down, to be fastened in a simple knot low upon the neck, showing in its full beauty the rare modelling of her head. The eyes were a rich, warm, luminous brown, fringed with long lashes, and in them lurked all manner of fathomless mysteries. The mouth was soft, yet full and firm--a real mouth, such as Nature bestows upon her real women. It was a face of freshness and youth and humour, and now was tremulous with a smiling, tear-wet tenderness.
"I think," said her father, slowly and softly, "that my daughter is very beautiful."
"There--enough of your blarney!" She flushed with pleasure, and pressed her fresh cheek against his withered one. "You dear old father, you!"
She drew him to his desk, which was strewn with a half-finished manuscript on the typhoid bacillus, and upon which stood a faded photograph of a young woman, near Katherine's years and made in her image, dressed in the tight-fitting "basque" of the early eighties.
Westville knew that Doctor West had loved his wife dearly, but the town had never surmised a tenth of the grief that had closed darkly in upon him when typhoid fever had carried her away while her young womanhood was in its freshest bloom.
Katherine pressed him down into his chair at the desk, sat down in one beside it, and took his hand.
"Now, father, tell me just how things stand."
"You know everything already," said he.
"Not everything. I know the charges of the other side, and I know your innocence. But I do not know your explanation of the affair."
He ran his free hand through his silver hair, and his face grew troubled.
"My explanation agrees with what you have read, except that I did not know I was being bribed."
"H'm!" Her brow wrinkled thoughtfully and she was silent for a moment.
"Suppose we go back to the very beginning, father, and run over the whole affair. Try to remember. In the early stages of negotiations, did the agent say anything to you about money?"
He did not speak for a minute or more.
"Now that I think it over, he did say something about its being worth my while if his filter was accepted."
"That was an overture to bribe you. And what did you say to him?"
"I don't remember. You see, at the time, his offer, if it was one, did not make any impression on me. I believe I didn't say anything to him at all."
"But you approved his filter?"
"Yes."
"Mr. Marcy says in the _Express_, and you admit it, that he offered you a bribe. You approved his filter. On the face of it, speaking legally, that looks bad, father."
"But how could I honestly keep from approving his filter, when it was the very best on the market for our water?" demanded Doctor West.
"Then how did you come to accept that money?"
The old man's face cleared.
"I can explain that easily. Some time ago the agent said something about the Acme Filter Company wishing to make a little donation to our hospital. I'm one of the directors, you know. So, when he handed me that envelope, I supposed it was the contribution to the hospital--perhaps twenty-five or fifty dollars."
"And that is all?"
"That's the whole truth. But when I explained the matter to the prosecuting attorney, he just smiled."
"I know it's the truth, because you say it." She affectionately patted the hand that she held. "But, again speaking legally, it wouldn't sound very plausible to an outsider. But how do you explain the situation?"
"I think the whole affair must be just a mistake."
"Possibly. But if so, you'll have to be able to prove it." She thought a space. "Could it be that this is a manufactured charge?"
Doctor West's eyes widened with amazement.
"Why, of course not! You have forgotten that the man who makes the charge is Mr. Sherman. You surely do not think he would let himself be involved in anything that he did not believe to be in the highest degree honourable?"
"I do not know him very well. During the four years he has been here, I have met him only a few times."
"But you know what your dearest friend thinks of him."
"Yes, I know Elsie considers her husband to be an ecclesiastical Sir Galahad. And I must admit that he has seemed to me the highest type of the modern young minister."
"Then you agree with me, that Mr. Sherman is thoroughly honest in this affair? That his only motive is a sense of public duty?"
"Yes. I cannot conceive of him knowingly doing a wrong."
"That's what has forced me to think it's only just a mistake," said her father.
"You may be right." She considered the idea. "But what does your lawyer say?"
His pale cheeks flushed.