fact. She caught a glimpse of some sort of ribbon on his breast--the
croix de guerre. She looked straight at him with interest, and saw that
he was tense with embarrassment.

"I believe I have something of yours," he said. "I want to give it
back." He was fumbling in his pocket. She couldn't really permit that.

"Bribed people," she thought, "must be content to remain bribed." She
walked rapidly toward her car without answering. The chauffeur opened
the door for her.

"Home," she said, and drove away.

An hour or so later the judge was giving a description of the interview
to the district attorney. It began as a general indictment of the
irresponsibility of the wealthy young people of to-day, touching on
their dress, appearance and manners. Then it descended suddenly to the
particular case.

"She came into this room in a hat the color of a flamingo"--the judge's
color sense was not good--"and her skirts almost to her knees; as
bold--well, I wouldn't like to tell you what my first idea was on seeing
her. She was as hard as--I could have told her that some of her own
father's methods were not strictly legal, only the courts were more
lenient in those days. A ruthless fellow--Joe Thorne. Do you know this
girl?"

"I've met her," said O'Bannon.

"She made a very unfavorable impression on me," said Judge Homans. "I
don't know when a young woman of agreeable appearance--she has
considerable beauty--has made such an unfavorable impression." And His
Honor added, as if the two remarks had nothing to do with each other, "I
shall give this unfortunate maid a very light sentence."

The district attorney bowed. It was exactly what he had always intended.

But a sentence which sounded light to Judge Homans--not less than three
and a half nor more than fifteen years--sounded heavy to Lydia. She was
horrified. The recent visit which, under Mrs. Galton's auspices, she had
paid to a man's prison was in her mind--the darkness, the crowded cells,
the pale abnormal-looking prisoners, the smell, the guards, the silence.
She simply would not allow Evans to spend fifteen years in such torture.
She was all the more determined because she knew, without once admitting
it, that she might have prevented it.

She read the sentence in the local newspaper at breakfast--she
breakfasted in bed--and the next minute she was up and in Miss Bennett's
room.

"This is a little too much," she said, walking in so fast that her silk
dressing gown s