Produced by Janet Kegg, Emmy and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net THE WITNESS A NOVEL BY GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL LUTZ AUTHOR OF A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS, ETC. NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS Published by Arrangement with Harper & Brothers Made in the United States of America THE WITNESS Copyright, 1917, by Harper & Brothers Printed in the United States of America TO MY MOTHER MARCIA MACDONALD LIVINGSTON WHOSE HELPFUL CRITICISM AND LOVING ENCOURAGEMENT HAVE BEEN WITH ME THROUGH THE YEARS _"He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself."_ --I JOHN 5:10 THE WITNESS CHAPTER I Like a sudden cloudburst the dormitory had gone into a frenzy of sound. Doors slammed, feet trampled, hoarse voices reverberated, heavy bodies flung themselves along the corridor, the very electrics trembled with the cataclysm. One moment all was quiet with a contented after-dinner-peace-before-study hours; the next it was as if all the forces of the earth had broken forth. Paul Courtland stepped to his door and threw it back. "Come on, Court, see the fun!" called the football half-back, who was slopping along with two dripping fire-buckets of water. "What's doing?" "Swearing-match! Going to make Little Stevie cuss! Better get in on it. Some fight! Tennelly sent 'Whisk' for a whole basket of superannuated cackle-berries"--he motioned back to a freshman bearing a basket of ancient eggs--"we're going to blindfold Steve and put oysters down his back, and then finish up with the fire-hose. Oh, the seven plagues of Egypt aren't in it with what we're going to do; and when we get done if Little Stevie don't let out a string of good, honest cuss-words like a man then I'll eat my hat. Little Stevie's got good stuff in him if it can only be brought out. We're a-going to bring it out. Then we're going to celebrate by taking him over to the theater and making him see 'The Scarlet Woman.' It'll be a little old miracle, all right, if he has any of his whining Puritanical ideas left in him after we get through with him. Come on! Get on the job!" Drifting along with the surging tide of students, Courtland sauntered down the corridor to the door at the extreme end where roomed the victim.