rth from husband
to wife. In that wordless instant their common knowledge manifested
itself to each one of the three.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

GOOD MEN AND TRUE

The North trial was Mount Hope's one vital sensation. Day after day the
courtroom was filled with eager perspiring humanity, while in their
homes, on the streets, and in the stores men talked of little else. As
for North himself, he was conscious of a curious sense of long
acquaintance with the courtroom; its staring white walls and crowded
benches seemed his accustomed surroundings, and here, with a feeling
that was something between fear and weariness, he followed each stage of
the elaborate game Judge Belknap, for the defense, and Moxlow, for the
prosecution, were playing, the game that had his life for its stake.

When court adjourned, always in the twilight of those mid-winter
afternoons, there were his brief comforting interviews with Elizabeth;
and then the long solitary evenings in his cell; and the longer nights,
restless and disturbed. The strain told fearfully on his vigor of body
and mind, his face under imprisonment's pallid mask, became gaunt and
heavily lined, while his eyes sunk deep in their sockets.

At first he had not believed that an innocent man could be punished for
a crime of which he had no knowledge; he was not so sure of this now,
for the days slipped past and the prosecution remained firmly intrenched
behind certain facts which were in their way, conclusive. He told
himself with grim humor that the single weak strand in the rope Moxlow
was seeking to fit about his neck was this, that after all was said and
proved, the fact remained, he had not killed Archibald McBride!

When the last witness for the state had been examined, North took the
stand in his own behalf. His cross-examination was concluded one dull
February day, and there came a brief halt in the rapid progress of the
trial; the jury was sent from the room while Moxlow and Belknap prepared
instructions and submitted them to the court. The judge listened
wearily, his sunken cheek resting against the palm of his thin hand, and
his gaze fixed on vacancy; when he spoke his voice was scarcely audible.
Once he paused in the middle of a sentence as his glance fell on the
heavy upturned face of his son, for he saw fear and entreaty written on
the close-drawn lips and in the bloodshot eyes.

A little later in the twilight North, with the sheriff at his elbow,
walked down