t with pity, how devoted he was to his young
master.

At noon the case was called, and the greatest of excitement prevailed
from one end of the city to the other, for there were few men as popular
there as Hubert Varrick. The spacious room was crowded to overflowing.
There was a great flutter of excitement when the handsome prisoner was
led into the court-room. Those who had known him from childhood were
touched with the deepest pity for him. They could not believe him
guilty.

In that hour quite as exciting an event was taking place in another part
of the great city.

To explain it we must go back to the thrilling runaway that took place a
few days before, when Jessie Bain, powerless to aid herself lay back
among the cushions of the coach, all unconscious that the mad horses
were whirling her on to death and destruction. They careened wildly
around first one corner and then another, making straight for the river.

At one of the crossings a man stood, his head bent on his breast, and
his eyes looking wistfully toward the dark water beyond.

"If I had the courage," he muttered, "I would drown myself. I can not
rest night or day with this load on my mind. It almost seems to me that
I am going mad! How terrible to me is the thought that I--whom all the
world has always regarded as an honest man--am an unconfessed murderer!"

The very air seemed to repeat his words--"a murderer!"--and the old
butler--for it was he--shuddered, as he muttered half aloud:

"I never meant to do it, God knows!"

Suddenly the sound of wheels smote his startled ear.

"A runaway!" he cried.

Without an instant's hesitation he threw himself forward. What mattered
it if he lost his life in the attempt? He would save the occupants of
the carriage, or give his wretched life in the attempt.

Nearer, nearer came the galloping horses, and just as he was about to
throw himself forward to seize them by the bits, they collided with the
street lamp. In an instant of time the vehicle was smashed into a
thousand pieces.

One of the occupants, a woman, was hurled headlong to the pavement; her
companion, half in and half out of the coach, was caught in the jam of
the door, while his coat was fairly torn from his body, the papers that
had been in his breast packet strewing the street. The butler sprang
forward to seize the man and save him, but fate willed it otherwise.

He was too late. And as he stood there paralyzed with horror, the team
plunged