that
blood is thicker than water!"

"You wish--you were--his daughter? Do you realize what you are saying?"
Then he went on brokenly: "_Don't_, Patricia, girl--for God's sake don't
tempt me to do evil that good may come! Can't you understand how I am
driven to do this thing--how every fibre of me is rebelling against the
savage necessity? God knows, I'd give anything I am or hope to be if the
necessity could be wiped out!"

Instantly she changed her attack.

"But I say you can not do it. You are a brave man, Evan; I know, because
I have seen you tried. You mustn't turn cowardly now."

"Nor shall I!" he countered quickly. "But I don't understand."

"Don't you? Isn't it cowardly to strike this cruel blow in the dark? You
_can't_ do this thing without giving your father the warning that you
would give your bitterest enemy--you simply can't, and still be the man
I have known and l--liked for two whole years!"

"Father's going to Wartrace this afternoon is merely an added twist of
the thumb-screws," he protested in fresh wretchedness. "I should have
gone to him first--I meant to go to him first. From what you said over
the telephone this morning I gathered that the Wartrace trip was to be
made on my account, and I hoped, I believed, it would be given up when I
refused to go. Now I can not see him first; the time is too short. That
which is to be done must be done to-day--this afternoon; otherwise it
will be too late. Don't make it any harder for me, Patricia. Surely you
can see how hard it is, in any case!"

"As I said a moment ago, I can see that you are about to do something
for which, in all the years to come, you will never be able to get your
own forgiveness. Oh, I know," she went on bitterly. "You will tell me
that I am a woman, with only a woman's standards, which are valueless
when they get mixed up with the emotions. But I can tell you that I know
your father better than you do--much better. And I believe in him,
utterly, absolutely. Won't you give him a chance, Evan? Won't you show
him those dreadful papers and ask him what he will do when you have
betrayed him?"

Blount winced painfully at the hard word, and then he remembered that he
had been the first to apply it. But he answered her in the only way that
seemed possible:

"The time: I have promised to meet Chief Justice Hemingway at his
chambers between four and five this afternoon."

"Chief Justice Hemingway?" she queried. "Why, he--" she broke off