Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/81

 What was the truth—just the truth—which Joan asked him to tell to the state's attorney, when he should be questioned?

Dads dressed without further disquieting his darling and he stole downstairs where he listened, cautiously, outside Ketlar's door. Hearing nothing, he deliberated whether to knock, decided against it, descended to the vestibule and requisitioned one of the newspapers which lay there.

Retreating with it, he set at once to scheming how to help Joan. He realized that some one surely would question him soon; and what would be the best thing for him to say? Not just the truth, of course. The truth, as he knew it in this case, was altogether too meager an affair for him to let it limit his usefulness to Joan.

Probably it would prove, as the truth frequently did, a convenient point of departure; but it was plain, from this newspaper, if it had not previously been obvious from Joan's note, that the girl to-day was in need of much more than mere truth.

So Dads planned and prepared, to the best of his wits and his knowledge, to help her.