her, terribly wrought upon by the memory she had called up
of that look; astounded that she had known of it, had even been able to
translate its meaning for me.

"Yes," she said, smiling, "I know all about it. And then you ran home
and told them." Her voice grew very caressing. "But that was in the
moment when you had lost your head. Now that you have had time to
think it all over, now that you know how much it means--oh, surely, you
will not speak again! I beg you, in human mercy, not that you plead
for him, not that you tell a false story, but only as you are a woman,
keep silence, keep silence!"

I listened with increasing dismay, as the hot words poured from her
lips; and, with the end, a revulsion of feeling took me, a lost and
bewildered sense of being completely astray. It was not to tell me
anything she had called me hither--oh, quite the opposite!--it was to
try to close my lips. If I hadn't been so blinded by my obstinate
hopes I might have thought of this before! I might have saved myself
the ordeal; for I had felt the very heart in me weaken at the picture
of him her words called up.

"If I could make myself believe as you do," I said, "that what I have
to tell will condemn him, even though he is innocent, I should want,
myself, to die. But I can't believe, I can't think, that God can be so
unjust as to let him be condemned when he is innocent!"

She let her head drop back, and laughed a little. "You will find, my
child, that it is men who control the affairs of the earth; and that if
you believe any such fine things of them you will be disappointed. As
for the lawyers, they will convict an innocent man as merrily as they
will eat their dinner, if only the popular cry is loud enough, and they
can get enough of what they call their evidence against him. Do not
expect any miraculous intervention on his behalf."

"I don't," I cried stoutly. "But some one must know the truth of what
has really happened; and that person surely will come forward and tell
what he knows before he will let Mr. Montgomery be condemned. Oh, if
only I knew, nothing should keep me from saying it!"

She had drawn herself upright in her chair, her face whiter than her
flower, her clenched hands resting on either arm; and now she slowly
rose to her feet. Standing there she seemed fairly to tower above me,
and looking down with her eyes glimmering upon me through her lashes.
"What if he is guilty?" she said slowly.

Th