ever I saw a pure soul in a
woman's face, it is in hers!"

"You've been in the sun, Sir John--you're getting sentimental," said
Jack Glover brutally, and the eminent lawyer choked indignantly.

Jack Glover had a trick of saying rude things to his friends, even when
those friends were twenty years his senior, and by every rule of
professional etiquette entitled to respectful treatment.

"Really!" said the outraged Sir John. "There are times, Glover, when you
are insufferable!"

But by this time Jack Glover was swinging along the Old Bailey, his
hands in his pockets, his silk hat on the back of his head.

He found the grey-haired senior member of the firm of Rennett, Glover
and Simpson (there had been no Simpson in the firm for ten years) on the
point of going home.

Mr. Rennett sat down at the sight of his junior.

"I heard the news by 'phone," he said. "Ellbery says there is no ground
for appeal, but I think the recommendation to mercy will save his
life--besides it is a _crime passionelle_, and they don't hang for
homicidal jealousy. I suppose it was the girl's evidence that turned the
trick?"

Jack nodded.

"And she looked like an angel just out of the refrigerator," he said
despairingly. "Ellbery did his poor best to shake her, but the old fool
is half in love with her--I left him raving about her pure soul and her
other celestial etceteras."

Mr. Rennett stroked his iron grey beard.

"She's won," he said, but the other turned on him with a snarl.

"Not yet!" he said almost harshly. "She hasn't won till Jimmy Meredith
is dead or----"

"Or----?" repeated his partner significantly. "That 'or' won't come off,
Jack. He'll get a life sentence as sure as 'eggs is eggs.' I'd go a long
way to help Jimmy; I'd risk my practice and my name."

Jack Glover looked at his partner in astonishment.

"You old sportsman!" he said admiringly. "I didn't know you were so fond
of Jimmy?"

Mr. Rennett got up and began pulling on his gloves. He seemed a little
uncomfortable at the sensation he had created.

"His father was my first client," he said apologetically. "One of the
best fellows that ever lived. He married late in life, that was why he
was such a crank over the question of marriage. You might say that old
Meredith founded our firm. Your father and Simpson and I were nearly at
our last gasp when Meredith gave us his business. That was our turning
point. Your father--God rest him--was never tired of talking abou