"What I have said to you is the absolute truth," she declared. "Here is the situation--believe me or not, just as you please. I ask you, for the moment, to accept the proposition that my father is the victim of a plot to steal the water-works, and then see how everything fits in with that theory. And bear in mind, as an item worth considering, my father's long and honourable career--never a dishonouring word against him till this charge came." And she went on and outlined, more fully than on yesterday before her father, the reasoning that had led her to her conclusion. "Now, does not that sound possible?" she demanded. He had watched her with keen, half-closed eyes. "H'm. You reason well," he conceded. "That's a lawyer's business," she retorted. "So much for theory. Now for facts." And she continued and gave him her experience of half an hour before with Blake, the editor's boring gaze fixed on her all the while. "Now I ask you this question: Is it likely that even a poor water system could fail so quickly and so completely as ours has done, unless some powerful person was secretly working to make it fail? Do you not see it never could? We all would have seen it, but we've all been too busy, too blind, and thought too well of our town, to suspect such a thing." His eyes were still boring into her. "But how about Doctor Sherman?" he asked. "I believe that Doctor Sherman is an innocent tool of the conspiracy, just as my father is its innocent victim," she answered promptly. Bruce sat with the same fixed look, and made no reply. "I have stated my theory, and I have stated my facts," said Katherine. "I have no court evidence, but I am going to have it. As I remarked before, you can believe what I have said, or not believe it. It's all the same to me." She stood up. "I wish you good afternoon." He quickly rose. "Hold on!" he said. She paused at the door. He strode to and fro across the little office, scowling with thought. Then he paused at the window and looked out. "Well?" she demanded. He wheeled about. "It sounds plausible." "Thank you," she said crisply. "I could hardly expect a man who has been the champion of error, to admit that he has been wrong and accept the truth. Good afternoon." Again she reached for the door-knob. "Wait!" he cried. There was a ring of resentment in his voice, but his square face that had been grudgingly non-committal was now aglow with excitement. "Of course you're right!" he exclaimed. "There's a damned infernal conspiracy! Now what can I do to help?" "Help?" she asked blankly. "Help work up the evidence? Help reveal the conspiracy?" She had not yet quite got her bearings concerning this new Bruce. "Help? Why should you help? Oh, I see," she said coldly; "it would make a nice sensational story for your paper." He flushed at her cutting words, and his square jaw set.