was done; and despair--the
first, perhaps, she had ever really felt--began to close in around her
as she saw how deep a gulf she had dug between this man and herself by
the inconsiderate act which had robbed him of all hope of ever making
her his wife. Moved by this feeling, she suddenly asked:

"Have you lost all interest in your client, Mr. Orcutt? Have you no wish
or hope remaining of seeing him acquitted of this crime?"

"My client," responded the lawyer, with bitter emphasis, "has taken his
case into his own hands. It would be presumptuous in me to attempt any
thing further in his favor."

"Mr. Orcutt!"

"Ah!" he scornfully laughed, with a quick yielding to his passion as
startling as it was unexpected, "you thought you could play with me as
you would; use my skill and ignore the love that prompted it. You are a
clever woman, Imogene, but you went too far when you considered my
forbearance unlimited."

"And you forsake Craik Mansell, in the hour of his extremity?"

"Craik Mansell has forsaken me."

This was true; for her sake her lover had thrown his defence to the
winds and rendered the assistance of his counsel unavailable. Seeing her
droop her head abashed, Mr. Orcutt dryly proceeded.

"I do not know what may take place in court to-morrow," said he. "It is
difficult to determine what will be the outcome of so complicated a
case. The District Attorney, in consideration of the deception which has
been practised upon you, may refuse to prosecute any further; or, if the
case goes on and the jury is called upon for a verdict, they may or may
not be moved by its peculiar aspects to acquit a man of such generous
dispositions. If they are, I shall do nothing to hinder an acquittal;
but ask for no more active measures on my part. I cannot plead for the
lover of the woman who has disgraced me."

This decision, from one she had trusted so implicitly, seemed to crush
her.

"Ah," she murmured, "if you did not believe him guilty you would not
leave him thus to his fate."

He gave her a short, side-long glance, half-mocking, half-pitiful.

"If," she pursued, "you had felt even a passing gleam of doubt, such as
came to me when I discovered that he had never really admitted his
guilt, you would let no mere mistake on the part of a woman turn you
from your duty as counsellor for a man on trial for his life."

His glance lost its pity and became wholly mocking.

"And do _you_ cherish but passing gleams?" he sarca