s son!

Always this! Always this! In whichever direction his mind travelled,
it always came back to this point--Paul Stepaside was his son!

Slowly he trudged back towards the city again. Presently he found
himself outside Strangeways Gaol. He looked at the grim,
forbidding-looking building. He thought of the creatures who lay
there, some awaiting trial, others suffering the penalty of their
misdoings. During the very assizes which he was now attending he had
committed several to suffer there; but it was not of them he thought.
What were they?--merely the off-scourings of Lancashire life. The only
one who mattered was his own son, and he lay there in a dark cell,
waiting for the morrow. He did not ask himself whether he was innocent
or guilty. At that moment it did not seem of importance. Paul was his
son! He, Judge Bolitho, was his father. He, who had never realised
that he had a son, suddenly woke up to the fact that his son lay there
in Strangeways Gaol, while he, his father, was the judge.

If he could only go to him, talk with him, it might help him to clear
his mind, help him to understand. But he could not do that. He had
been too long a servant of the law to so far transgress against the
most elementary usages of the law. No judge was allowed to see a
prisoner alone while his case was being tried. But if he could--if he
could!

He called to mind Paul's face as he had seen it through the day. Even
when he sat on the Bench he remembered being struck by it. It was so
calm, so proud, so unyielding. He had felt angry that this man,
accused of murder, had seemed to treat his accusers, as well as his
judge and counsel, with a kind of contempt. Now he felt almost proud
of him. Paul Stepaside was no ordinary man. And he was his son!

Again he looked at the gloomy, grim pile. Of what was his boy
thinking? He lay in a black prison cell, with the shadow of death
hanging over him. What were his feelings? During his career Judge
Bolitho had been brought into contact with some of the darkest
characters in the land. He knew something of what men suffered for
their crimes. And at that moment he realised what Paul was suffering.

"Oh, if I could only go to him!" he repeated to himself--"if I only
could!"

He did not know why it was, but he felt a change coming over him. He
realised that he had a wondrous interest in this man whom he pictured
lying in Strangeways Gaol. He knew that the anger a