lent.

"Poor Mary!" continued the Judge. "Of course, you feel Ned's death
keenly, and it must be ten times harder for you to bear than if it had
taken place in the natural way. Talk about not believing in capital
punishment after this! Why, the people would tear him to pieces if
they could get hold of him!"

"What do you mean?" asked the girl, and her voice was hoarse as she
spoke.

"From what I can gather, public feeling against him is terribly
strong," went on Judge Bolitho. "It seems that the news has got afloat
that he had been planning this for months."

"It's a lie!" cried the girl.

"What?" asked the Judge in surprise.

"It cannot be true. I saw him only a few days before the murder. He
is not capable of such a thing, father."

The Judge laughed sarcastically. "I ought to be the last man to
prejudge a case," he said. "But when you talk about such a thing being
impossible I cannot help being amused. Besides, no one can look at his
face without realising the streak of the savage that is in him. He
always looked like an incipient criminal. Anyhow, we shall see, and
justice must be done."

Christmas passed away and the New Year came, and there was nothing
further in the newspapers about Paul Stepaside save that he was lying
in Strangeways Gaol in Manchester awaiting the coming Assizes. Early
in the New Year, however, Mary noticed that her father's face looked
strangely perturbed. He was very silent, and seemed very anxious.

"What is the matter?" she asked. "Aren't you well?"

"Oh, yes, quite well," he replied.

"What is it, then?"

"I don't like it," said the Judge. "As far as I can see, I shall have
to try Stepaside. I thought I should have escaped it, but for some
reason or other Leeson has dropped out, and I am the next on the rota.
There is not sufficient reason, either, why I should raise any
objection, and, after all, the jury will have to decide his guilt, not
I. Besides, if I did, it would cause a certain amount of comment.
Still, I don't like it." And it was easy to see, by the look on his
face, that he meant what he said. Much as he had always disliked Paul
Stepaside, he shrank from having to give judgment against him--and
that, he seemed to believe, would be inevitable.

"It is settled," he said a day or two later. "I have to go to
Lancashire next week."

"Father," said the girl, "let me go with you, will you?"

"Go with me, Mary? Surely you do not mean to say that