man said. "I didn't mean to
let you come home alone."

"Thank you, Dick." It seemed as if neither joy nor sorrow would find a
way into the quiet voice again.

The wind roared; the boughs rustled against the glass; the fire, soberly
settled to work, steamed and crackled; the clock ticked indifferently;
there was no other sound in the room; the two men were silent, the one
staring always before him, the other sitting with a hand on the older
man's hand, waiting. Minutes they sat so, and the wintry sky outside
darkened and lay sullenly in bands of gray and orange against the
windows; the light of the logs was stronger than the daylight; it
flickered carelessly across the ashiness of the emotionless face. The
young man, watching the face, bent forward and gripped his other hand on
the unresponsive one in his clasp.

"Uncle," he asked, "will it make things worse if I talk to you?"

"No, Dick."

Nothing made a difference, it seemed. Silence or words must simply fall
without effect on the rock bottom of despair. The young man halted, as
if dismayed, before this overpowering inertia of hopelessness; he drew a
quick breath.

"A coroner's jury isn't infallible. I don't believe it of Jack--a lot of
people don't believe it," he said.

The older man looked at him heavily. "You'd say that. Jack's friends
will. I've been trained to weigh evidence--I must believe it."

"Listen," the young man urged. "Don't shut down the gates like that. I'm
not a lawyer, but I've been trained to think, too, and I believe you're
not thinking squarely. There's other evidence that counts besides this.
There's Jack--his personality."

"It has been taken into consideration."

"It can't be taken into consideration by strangers--it needs years of
intimacy to weigh that evidence as I can weigh it--as you--You know best
of all," he cried out impulsively, "if you'll let yourself know, how
impossible it was. That Jack should have bought that pistol and taken it
to Ben Armstrong's rooms to kill him--it was impossible--impossible!"
The clinched fist came down on the black broadcloth knee with the
conviction of the man behind it. The words rushed like melted metal,
hot, stinging, not to be stopped. The judge quivered as if they had
stung through the callousness, touched a nerve. A faint color crawled
to his cheeks; for the first time he spoke quickly, as if his thoughts
connected with something more than gray matter.

"You talk about my not allowing my