“She couldn’t refuse if the demand were made regularly, could she, Mr. Tracy?” asked Kate. He shook his head, and she went on: “But it seems dreadful not to act _with_ mamma in the matter. Just think what a situation it will be, to bring our lawyer up to fight her lawyer! It sounds unnatural, doesn’t it? Don’t you think, Mr. Tracy, if you were to speak to her now--” “No, that could hardly be, unless she asked me,” returned the lawyer. “Well, then, if I told her all you said, or you wrote it out for me to show her.” “No, nor that either,” said Reuben. “To speak frankly, Miss Minster, your mother is perhaps the most difficult and dangerous element in the whole problem. I hope you won’t be offended--but that any woman in her senses could have done what she seems to have done, is almost incredible.” “Poor mamma!” commented Ethel. “She never would listen to advice.” “Unfortunately, that is just what she has done,” broke in Kate. “Mr. Tracy, tell me candidly, is it possible that the man who advised her to do these things--or rather the two men, both lawyers, who advised her--could have done so honestly?” “I should say it was impossible,” answered Reuben, after a pause. Again the two girls exchanged glances, and then Kate, looking at her watch, rose to her feet. “We are already late, Mr. Tracy,” she said, offering him her hand, and unconsciously allowing him to hold it in his own as she went on: “We are both deeply indebted to you. We want you--oh, so much!--to help us. We will do everything you say; we will put ourselves completely in your hands, won’t we, Ethel?” The younger sister said “Yes, indeed!” and then smiled as she furtively glanced up into Kate’s face and thence downward to her hand. Kate herself with a flush and murmur of confusion withdrew the fingers which the lawyer still held. “Then you must begin,” he said, not striving very hard to conceal the delight he had had from that stolen custody of the gloved hand, “by resolving not to say a word to anybody--least of all to your mother--about having consulted me. You must realize that we have to deal with criminals--it is a harsh word, I know, but there can be no other--and that to give them warning before our plans are laid would be a folly almost amounting to crime itself. If I may, Miss Kate”--there was a little gulp in his throat as he safely passed this perilous first use of the familiar name--“I will write to you to-morrow, outlining my suggestions in detail, telling you what to do, perhaps something of what I am going to do, and naming a time--subject, of course, to your convenience--when we would better meet again.” Thus, after some further words on the same lines, the interview ended. Reuben went to the door with them, and would have descended to the street to bear them company, but they begged him not to expose himself to the cold, and so, with gracious adieus, left him in his office and went down, the narrow, unlighted staircase, picking their way.