lame then--was he to blame now? Certainly
not consciously, not by any intended word or act. Now he met her eyes
and smiled at her, not gaily, not gravely, but with a kind of whimsical
helplessness; for she was the first to remind him that he was leaving
the court-room in a different position (if not a different man) from
that in which he entered it. He had entered the court-room as James
Gathorne Kerry, and he was leaving it as Shiel Crozier; and somehow
James Gathorne Kerry had always been to himself a different man
from Shiel Crozier, with different views, different feelings, if not
different characteristics.

He saw faces turned to him, a few with intense curiosity, fewer
still with a little furtiveness, some with amusement, and many with
unmistakable approval; for one thing was clear, if his own evidence
was correct: he was the son of a baronet, he was heir-presumptive to
a baronetcy, and he had scored off Augustus Burlingame in a way which
delighted a naturally humorous people. He noted, however, that the nod
which Studd Bradley, the financier, gave him had in it an enigmatic
something which puzzled him. Surely Bradley could not be prejudiced
against him because of the evidence he had given. There was nothing
criminal in living under an assumed name, which, anyhow, was his own
name in three-fourths of it, and in the other part was the name of the
county where he was born.

"Divils me own, I told you he was up among the dukes," said Malachi
Deely to John Sibley as they came out. "And he's from me own county, and
I know the name well enough; an' a damn good name it is. The bulls of
Castlegarry was famous in the south of Ireland."

"I've a warm spot for him. I was right, you see. Backing horses ruined
him," said Sibley in reply; and he looked at Crozier admiringly.

There is the communion of saints, but nearer and dearer is the communion
of sinners; for a common danger is their bond, and that is even more
than a common hope.

CHAPTER IV. "STRENGTH SHALL BE GIVEN THEE"

On the evening of the day of the trial, Mrs. Tynan, having fixed the
new blind to the window of Shiel Crozier's room, which was on the
ground-floor front, was lowering and raising it to see if it worked
properly, when out in the moonlit street she saw a wagon approaching her
house surrounded and followed by obviously excited men. Once before she
had seen just such a group nearing her door. That was when her husband
was brought home to die i