Page:The traitor; a story of the fall of the invisible empire (IA traitorstoryoffa00dixo).pdf/172

 "What do you mean?" Stella asked, lowering her voice.

"That beyond a doubt John Graham inspired this crime."

"You believe it?" she broke in fiercely.

"I'm sure of it. His hatred of the Judge had become a mania. He used the Klan as the cloak of his hired assassin."

"The Klan decreed his death," said Stella sternly.

"John Graham decreed it."

"What do you propose?" she asked, again coming close to Steve.

"To have him executed by the Klan itself!"

"And yet you are not a member?" she asked with a smile.

"I am in touch with men who are."

"How could his execution be brought about?"

"Ask him the question you put to me."

"And if he tells?"

"He will forfeit his life."

Stella's eyes rested a moment on the chair in which her father fell the night of his death. She turned and gazed into Steve's face with a strange absent expression in her eyes as though they were seeing a picture which had etched itself in fire on her soul.

"I'm going to cultivate Mr. Graham's