porters' table. Here was a
story!

"Very well," answered Miss Beekman proudly. "Do as you see fit, and as
your own duty and conscience demand."

The judge could not conceal his annoyance. The last thing in the world
that he wished to do was to send Miss Althea to jail. But having
threatened her he must carry out his threat or forever lose face.

"I will give the witness until tomorrow morning at half after ten
o'clock to make up her mind what she will do," he announced after a
hurried conference with O'Brien. "Adjourn court!"

Miss Beekman did not go to bed at all that night. Until a late hour she
conferred in the secrecy of her Fifth Avenue library with her
gray-haired solicitor, who, in some mysterious way, merely over the
telephone, managed to induce the newspapers to omit any reference to his
client's contemptuous conduct in their morning editions.

"There's no way out of it, my dear," he said finally as he took his
leave--he was her father's cousin and very fond of her--"this judge has
the power to send you to jail if he wants to--and dares to! It's an even
chance whether he will dare to or not. It depends on whether he prefers
to stand well with the McGurks or with the general public. Of course I
respect your attitude, but really I think you are a little quixotic.
Points of honor are too ephemeral to be debated in courts of justice. To
do so would be to open the door to all kinds of abuses. Dishonest
witnesses would constantly avail themselves of the opportunity to avoid
giving evidence."

"Dishonest witnesses would probably lie in the first place!" she
quavered.

"True! I quite overlooked that!" he smiled, gazing down at her in an
avuncular manner. "But to-day the question isn't open. It is settled,
whether we like it or not. No pledge of privacy, no oath of secrecy--can
avail against demand in a court of justice. Even confessions obtained by
fraud are admissible--though we might wish otherwise."

Miss Beekman shrugged her shoulders.

"Nothing you have said seems to me to alter the situation."

"Very well," he replied. "I guess that settles it. Knowing you and the
Beekman breed! There's one thing I must say," he added as he stood in
the doorway after bidding her good night--"that old fellow Tutt has
behaved pretty well, leaving you entirely alone this way. I always had
an idea he was a sort of shyster. Most attorneys of that class would
have been sitting on your doorstep all the evening trying to pers