"I will take care of my father who, I am sure, would not want to have me stay here on the terms that you have named. As to Harold King--I wish to inform you that he is a gentleman of noble mind and heart. He refused to sell his honor to you, and you, whom I am now beginning to think have no honor, call him insolent. You say he has no credit with you, and I tell you he has a twelve thousand dollar job and needs none. You say he is branded as a Klansman. If he is a Klansman that is evidence that the organization is composed of good citizens, for Harold King would not belong to an organization that was not." She stepped into the stenographer's office and secured her coat and hat, and without waiting to put them on, walked out with her head held high. Ruth spent the rest of the day trying to find employment but was unsuccessful. It was a difficult thing for Ruth to inform her father that she was out of employment. He was worried, as she knew he would be, and she did her best to comfort him. "Don't worry, daddy; I'll soon find other employment." "I'm not worrying on my own account, but I am sorry, Ruth, to have you worried about getting a job. If I had the money that man took from my safe we wouldn't need to worry, or if my head would only get right so that I could work I wouldn't care so much about the loss of the money." When Ruth saw Harold she told him that Stover had discharged her or, rather, had asked her to consent to terms which she could not accept, if she remained. She told him that Stover objected to some remarks she had made favorable to the Klan. She did not tell him that Stover had demanded that she break off her associations with him. Chapter XXII "Paper. Morning paper! All about the whipping of the mayor of Freeburg, by members of the Ku Klux Klan," shouted the newsboys in the ears of the business men as they went to their offices and stores one morning in the latter part of October. The papers sold rapidly, and men devoured the account of the reported whipping with great avidity. All day men gathered in groups on the streets of Wilford Springs and Zala discussing the account of the alleged whipping of Mayor Krouse. Usually the first sentiment expressed by those not Klansmen was a condemnation of the Klan. However, on second thought, the more conservative began to question whether it was reasonable to suppose that the Klan had committed this crime on the eve of election. Perhaps it was a frame-up. Politically the Klan would have nothing to gain and everything to lose by its commission, they reasoned, while the opposition might believe that they could create in this way a stampede from Klan candidates.