ed his head to the inevitable.

His wife, a nervous, sickly woman, was helpless to comfort or aid
him. She had taken their misfortune as a visitation of an
inscrutable Deity. She knew, of course, that her husband was
wholly innocent of the accusations brought against him and if his
character could be cleared and himself rehabilitated before the
world, she would be the first to rejoice. But if it pleased the
Almighty in His wisdom to sorely try her husband and herself and
inflict this punishment upon them it was not for the finite mind
to criticise the ways of Providence. There was probably some good
reason for the apparent cruelty and injustice of it which their
earthly understanding failed to grasp. Mrs. Rossmore found much
comfort in this philosophy, which gave a satisfactory ending to
both ends of the problem, and she was upheld in her view by the
rector of the church which she had attended regularly each Sunday
for the past five and twenty years. Christian resignation in the
hour of trial, submission to the will of Heaven were, declared her
spiritual adviser, the fundamental principles of religion. He
could only hope that Mrs. Rossmore would succeed in imbuing her
husband with her Christian spirit. But when the judge's wife
returned home and saw the keen mental distress of the man who had
been her companion for twenty-five long years, the comforter in
her sorrows, the joy and pride of her young wifehood, she forgot
all about her smug churchly consoler, and her heart went out to
her husband in a spontaneous burst of genuine human sympathy. Yes,
they must do something at once. Where men had failed perhaps a
woman could do something. She wanted to cable at once for Shirley,
who was everything in their household--organizer, manager,
adviser--but the judge would not hear of it. No, his daughter was
enjoying her holiday in blissful ignorance of what had occurred.
He would not spoil it for her. They would see; perhaps things
would improve. But he sent for his old friend ex-Judge Stott.

They were life-long friends, having become acquainted nearly
thirty years ago at the law school, at the time when both were
young men about to enter on a public career. Stott, who was
Rossmore's junior, had begun as a lawyer in New York and soon
acquired a reputation in criminal practice. He afterwards became
assistant district attorney and later, when a vacancy occurred in
the city magistrature, he was successful in securing the
appoin