quite a noise, so tense was the silence which
prevailed. More than one of these reporters declared afterwards that
they did not know what they were writing. They were simply like
automata, acting according to custom.

Although the judge had dismissed the court, no one moved. As if by
instinct, all felt that there was something more to be said. What had
prompted Judge Bolitho to make this statement they did not know, they
could not conceive; but they felt rather than thought that something
tremendous was at stake. Old, habitual theatre-goers declared to each
other in talking about the matter afterwards that no drama they had
ever witnessed had ever been so exciting as the scene that day. But
nothing had depended upon what was said. The words of the judge were
few and simple, but the very place seemed laden with doom.

"In abandoning all associations with this case," went on the judge, and
his voice was more natural now, "I wish to make a further statement.
Perhaps there seems no sufficient reason why I should do so,
nevertheless I must. I can no longer sit in judgment upon the prisoner
for the gravest of all reasons----" Again he stopped. He did not know
how to proceed. Perhaps such a thing was almost unprecedented in the
history of trials. Up to that moment Paul had been like a man in a
dream. On entering the dock and finding that the judge was not present
he fell to wondering at the reason of his lateness, and presently could
not help being affected by the influences which surrounded him. He,
too, felt there was something in the air which, to say the least of it,
was not usual. He had come there with his heart full of bitter hatred,
with a feeling that the man who was to sit in judgment upon him, even
although he were his father, was his enemy. In a vague way he wondered
what would happen through the day, wondered whether he should be able
to keep his knowledge to himself, wondered whether, at some moment when
the judge manifested some particular injustice to him, he might not
yield to the passion of the moment and proclaim the relationship.
Outwardly he was still cool and collected, although his face was very
pale and his eyes burned like coals of fire.

When the judge entered the court he, too, was much moved by his
appearance. He saw that he had been suffering terribly, and into his
heart came a kind of savage joy. There seemed something like poetical
justice in the thought of this man's sufferi