The Willard house was in a virtual state of siege. News-paper
reporters from Boston and New York were actually encamped at every
gate, terrible as an army, with cameras. It was with some difficulty
that we got in, even though we were expected, for some of the more
enterprising had already fooled the family by posing as officers of
the law and messengers from Dr. Dixon.

The house was a real, old colonial mansion with tall white pillars, a
door with a glittering brass knocker, which gleamed out severely at
you as you approached through a hedge of faultlessly trimmed boxwoods.

Senator, or rather former Senator, Willard met us in the library, and
a moment later his daughter Alma joined him. She was tall, like her
father, a girl of poise and self-control. Yet even the schooling of
twenty-two years in rigorous New England self-restraint could not
hide the very human pallor of her face after the sleepless nights and
nervous days since this trouble had broken on her placid existence.
Yet there was a mark of strength and determination on her face that
was fascinating. The man who would trifle with this girl, I felt, was
playing fast and loose with her very life. I thought then, and I said
to Kennedy afterward: "If this Dr. Dixon is guilty, you have no right
to hide it from that girl. Anything less than the truth will only
blacken the hideousness of the crime that has already been committed."

The senator greeted us gravely, and I could not but take it as a good
omen when, in his pride of wealth and family and tradition, he laid
bare everything to us, for the sake of Alma Willard. It was clear that
in this family there was one word that stood above all others, "Duty."