where. There was no point to her staying. The man she loved was dead and now she was being hounded by the newspapers and there was a threat that if she did not tell where the money was hidden she would be sent to prison. As for the stolen money—she did not believe the man who had been killed knew any more about it than she did. No doubt there was money stolen and then, because he had run away with her, the crime was put upon him. The affair was very simple. The young man worked in that bank and was engaged to be married to a woman of his own class. And then one night he and Katherine were alone in his father’s house and something happened between them.
As John Webster walked along the street the sun was shining and as there was a light breeze a few leaves were falling from the maple shade trees with which the streets were lined. Soon there would be frost and the trees would be all afire with colour. If one could only be aware glorious days were ahead.
Now he was thinking of things he decided had better be left out of the thoughts of a business man. However, for this one day, he would give himself over to the thinking of any thought that came into his head. To-morrow perhaps things would be different. He would become again what he had always been (with the exception of a few slips, times when he had been rather as he was now) a quiet orderly man going about his business and not given to foolishness. He would run his washing machine business and try to keep his mind on that. In the evenings he would read the newspapers and keep abreast of the events of the day.
"I don't go on a bat very often. I deserve a little vacation," he thought rather sadly.
Ahead of him in the street, almost two blocks ahead, a man walked. John Webster had met the man once. He was some kind of a professor in a small college of the town, and once, two or three years before, there had been an effort made, on the part of the college president, to raise money among local business men to help the school through a financial crisis. A dinner was given and attended by a number of the college faculty and by an organization called the Chamber of Commerce to which John Webster belonged. The man who now walked before him had been at the dinner and he and the washing machine manufacturer had been seated together.
