t was
emptying itself into the street, turned away in the direction of his
home.

For no single instant during the day had he been able to take his eyes
from his father's face. He had heard almost nothing of what was said, it
was only when the coldly impersonal tones of the judge's voice reached
him out of, what was to him silence, that he was stung to a full
comprehension of what was going on about him. The faces of the crowd had
blended until they were as indistinguishable as the face of humanity
itself. For him there had been but the one tragic presence in that dingy
room; and now--as the dull gray winter twilight enveloped him,--wherever
he turned his eyes, on the snow-covered pavement, in the bare branches
of the trees,--there he saw, endlessly repeated, the white drawn face of
his father.

His capacity for endurance seemed to measure itself against the slow
days. A week--two weeks--and the trial would end, but how? If the
verdict was guilty, North's friends would still continue their fight for
his life. He must sustain himself beyond what he felt to be the utmost
limit of his powers; and always, day after day, there would be that face
with its sunken eyes and bloodless lips, to summon him into its
presence.

He found himself at his own door, and paused uncertainly. He passed a
tremulous hand before his eyes. Was he sure of Gilmore,--was he sure of
Evelyn, who must know that North was innocent? The thought of her roused
in him all his bitter sense of hurt and injury. North had trampled on
his confidence and friendship! The lines of his face grew hard. This was
to be his revenge,--his by every right, and his fears should rob him of
no part of it!

He pushed open the door and entered the unlighted hail, then with a
grumbled oath because of the darkness, passed on into the sitting-room.
Except for such light as a bed of soft coal in the grate gave out, the
room was clothed in uncertainty. He stumbled against a chair and swore
again savagely. He was answered by a soft laugh, and then he saw Evelyn
seated in the big arm-chair at one side of the fireplace.

"Did you hurt yourself, Marsh?" she asked.

Langham growled an unintelligible reply and dropped heavily into a
chair. He brought with him the fumes of whisky and stale tobacco, and as
these reached her across the intervening space Evelyn made a little
grimace in the half light.

"I declare, Marsh, you are hardly fit to enter a respectable house!" she
said.