hy I really think you ought to take interest in
politics."

"I'd rather take interest in you, Granny. You're very jolly to look at."

Frances Freeland raised her brows.

"I? My dear, I'm a perfect fright nowadays."

Thus pushing away what her stoicism and perpetual aspiration to an
impossibly good face would not suffer her to admit, she added:

"Where would you like to drive this afternoon?"

For they took drives in a small victoria, Frances Freeland holding her
sunshade to protect him from the sun whenever it made the mistake of
being out.

On August the fourth he insisted that he was well and must go back home.
And, though to bring her attendance on him to an end was a grief, she
humbly admitted that he must be wanting younger company, and, after one
wistful attempt, made no further bones. The following day they
travelled.

On getting home he found that the police had been to see little Biddy
Tryst, who was to be called as a witness. Tod would take her over on the
morning of the trial. Derek did not wait for this, but on the day before
the assizes repacked his bag and went off to the Royal Charles Hostel at
Worcester. He slept not at all that night, and next morning was early at
the court, for Tryst's case would be the first. Anxiously he sat
watching all the queer and formal happenings that mark the initiation of
the higher justice--the assemblage of the gentlemen in wigs; the sifting,
shifting, settling of clerks, and ushers, solicitors, and the public; the
busy indifference, the cheerful professionalism of it all. He saw little
Mr. Pogram come in, more square and rubbery than ever, and engage in
conclave with one of the bewigged. The smiles, shrugs, even the sharp
expressions on that barrister's face; the way he stood, twisting round,
one hand wrapped in his gown, one foot on the bench behind; it was all as
if he had done it hundreds of times before and cared not the snap of one
of his thin, yellow fingers. Then there was a sudden hush; the judge came
in, bowed, and took his seat. And that, too, seemed so professional.
Haunted by the thought of him to whom this was almost life and death, the
boy was incapable of seeing how natural it was that they should not all
feel as he did.

The case was called and Tryst brought in. Derek had once more to undergo
the torture of those tragic eyes fixed on him. Round that heavy figure,
that mournful, half-brutal, and half-yearning face, the pleadings, the
q