"I have talked with Torrance for over half an hour to-day, and since
then nothing can ever make me believe that that man could commit a
cold-blooded murder. Harold has always hated him--you admit that
yourself--and now you are permitting him to prejudice you against the
man purely on the strength of that dislike. I am going to help him. I'm
going to do it, not only to obtain justice for him, but to assist in
detecting and punishing the true murderer."

"I don't see, Harriet, how you can take any interest in such a
creature," said Elizabeth. "You know from the circumstances under which
we saw him before father employed him what type of man he is, and it was
further exemplified by the evidence of his relationship with that common
woman of the streets."

"He told me about her to-day," replied Harriet. "He had only known her
very casually, but she helped him once--loaned him some money when he
needed it---and when he found that she had been a stenographer and
wanted to give up the life she had been leading and be straight again,
he helped her.

"I asked Sergeant O'Donnell particularly about that, and even he had to
admit that there was no evidence whatever to implicate the girl or show
that the relations between her and Mr. Torrance had been anything that
was not right; and you know yourself how anxious O'Donnell has been to
dig up evidence of any kind derogatory to either of them."

"How are you going to help him?" asked Elizabeth. "Take flowers and
cake to him in jail?"

There was a sneer on her face and on her lips. "If he cares for flowers