right, I shall
bring pain, disgrace on so many. No, I cannot do it! It cannot be
right to do right! It cannot!"

And still he paced the room, struggling, fighting, and sometimes
offering wild, inarticulate prayers.

CHAPTER XXII

THE DAY OF JUDGMENT

On the morning of the second day of the trial Paul Stepaside woke from
a troubled sleep. Throughout the night he had been living again in his
dreams the scenes of the trial. They had been confused and bewildered;
but one fact dominated everything else: the man who was his judge was
his father! When he woke, that was the first thought that appeared
clear in his mental horizon. Before he had gone to sleep he realised
that he hated his father with a more intense hatred than when his
mother had told her story on the Altarnun Moors. No thought of
tenderness came into his mind. No feeling of affection entered his
heart. It seemed to him as though all the darkness of his life, all
the pain he had ever suffered, all the wrongs he had ever endured, were
because of the man who, his mother declared, was his father. And he
hated him! It was through him he lay in prison. It was through him
the shadow of the gallows rested upon him. He realised, too, even
although his heart refused to assent to the finding of his brain, that
he must no longer love the woman who was dearer to him than his own
life. His sister? His heart made mockery of the thought! No man
loved a sister as he loved Mary Bolitho. Only a half-sister, it is
true, but they were both children of the same father. Oh, the bitter
mockery, the terrible irony of it! And this man, who stood for
justice, who represented the majesty of the law, who had risen to one
of the highest places in the realm of the law, had been in reality a
criminal ever since he came to manhood. And this man had made it, as
it seemed to him, a sin for him to love the woman who was all the world
to him. His sister! His sister! He had some idea that the English
law did not forbid a man marrying his own stepsister, but something in
his heart revolted against that. And yet, and yet---- But what did it
all matter? He lay there in Strangeways Gaol charged with murder. The
first day of the trial had gone black against him, and, although he
knew no more as to who murdered Ned Wilson than the veriest stranger,
he realised that he stood in the most imminent danger. And the man who
was really responsible for everything, the man w