lf in his chair, Belknap hurried into
court.

Judge Langham had not yet appeared, and the crowd focused its attention
on the shut door leading into his private office. Presently this door
was seen to open slowly, and the judge's spare erect figure paused on
the threshold. His eyes, sunken, yet brilliant with a strange light,
shifted from side to side as he glanced over the room.

Marshall Langham had not quitted his seat. There in his remote corner
under the gallery, his blanched face framed by shadows, his father's
glance found him. With his hand resting tremulously on the jamb of the
door as if to steady himself, the judge advanced a step. Once more his
eyes strayed in the direction of his son, and from the gloom of that
dull corner which Marshall had made his own, despair and terror called
aloud to him. His shaking hand dropped to his side, and then like some
pale ghost, he passed slowly before the eager eyes that were following
his every movement to his place behind the flat-topped desk on the
raised dais.

As he sank into his chair he turned to the clerk of the court and there
was a movement of his thin lips, but no sound passed them. Brockett
guessed the order he had wished to give, and the big key slid around in
the old-fashioned lock of the jury-room door. Heavy-visaged and
hesitating, the twelve men filed into court, and at sight of them John
North's heart seemed to die within his breast. He no longer hoped nor
doubted, he knew their verdict,--he was caught in some intricate web of
circumstance! A monstrous injustice was about to be done him, and in the
very name of justice itself!

The jurors, awkward in their self-consciousness, crossed the room and,
as intangible as it was potent, a wave of horror went with them. There
was a noisy scraping of chairs as they took their seats, and then a
deathlike silence.

The clerk glanced up inquiringly into the white face that was bent on
him. A scarcely perceptible inclination of the head answered him, and he
turned to the jury.

"Gentlemen, have you arrived at a true verdict, and chosen one of your
number to speak for you?" he asked.

Martin Howe, the first man in the front row of the two solemn lines of
jurors, came awkwardly to his feet and said almost in a whisper:

"We have. We find the defendant guilty as charged in the indictment."

"Mr. Howe, do you find this man guilty as charged in the indictment?"
asked the clerk.

"I do," responded the juror.

T