laces, widely scattered, the twelve good and true men were
snoring snugly in bed. To-morrow they would send Angelo to his death
without a quiver. He shuddered, striding on, he knew not whither, into
the night. His brain no longer worked. He had become a peripatetic
automaton self-dedicated to nocturnal perambulation.
With his pockets bulging with stogies and one glowing like a headlight
in advance of him he wandered in a sort of coma up Tenth Avenue, crossed
to the Riverside Drive, mounted Morningside Heights, descended again
through the rustling alleys of Central Park, and found himself at Fifth
Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street just as the dawn was paling the electric
lamps to a sickly yellow and the trees were casting strange unwonted
shadows in the wrong direction. He was utterly exhausted. He looked
eagerly for some place to sit down, but the doors of the hotels were
dark and tightly closed and it was too cold to remain without moving in
the open air.
Down Fifth Avenue he trudged, intending to go home and snatch a few
hours' sleep before court should open, but each block seemed miles in
length. Presently he approached the cathedral, whose twin spires were
tinted with reddish gold. The sky had become a bright blue. Suddenly all
the street lamps went out. He told himself that he had never realized
before the beauty of those two towers reaching up toward eternity,
typifying man's aspiration for the spiritual. He remembered having heard
that a cathedral was never closed, and looking toward the door he
perceived that it was open. With utmost difficulty he climbed the steps
and entered its dark shadows. A faint light emanated from the tops of
the stained-glass windows. Down below a candle burned on either side of
the altar while a flickering gleam shone from the red cup in the
sanctuary lamp. Worn out, drugged for lack of sleep, faint for want of
food, old Mr. Tutt sank down upon one of the rear seats by the door, and
resting his head upon his arms on the back of the bench in front of him
fell fast asleep.
He dreamed of a legal heaven, of a great wooden throne upon which sat
Babson in a black robe and below him twelve red-faced angels in a double
row with harps in their hands, chanting: "Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!" An
organ was playing somewhere, and there was a great noise of footsteps.
Then a bell twinkled and he raised his head and saw that the chancel was
full of lights and white-robed priests. It was broad daylight. H
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