The Court Room is quiet now, for it is ten o'clock at night. Only a few
reporters and officials have lingered, and these yawn over the
protracted business. Think of it! This is merely a matter of business to
them--the life of this man. I cannot blame them, yet the thought of such
indifference to what is so terribly vital to me, crushes with its awful
significance.

Godfrey Warren is only a name to you, or at most only the name of one of
my clients. You have not known that he is my oldest and dearest friend.
How hard it has been to keep this from you! But it was his wish that you
should not know it--and, if I do not send this letter, you never will.

Warren and I have been friends from boyhood. We attended the same school
where we "raised the devil in couples" after a manner bad to record but
good to remember. So inseparable were we that our families planned to
send us to different Universities, thinking, I suppose, that our
continued intimacy would be at the expense of a broader knowledge of
mankind. But their purpose, whatever it was, came to nothing, for we
flatly rejected any college education upon such terms.

As a result we entered Yale together and left there four years later
with our boyish affection welded in a friendship such as comes into the
lives of but few men.

Warren showed, even as a lad, those characteristics which have since
marked him as a man apart. He was quick at his studies and slow in his
friendships. But his judgment of men, though slow, was sure. A more
accurate reader of character never lived. But of late years, whenever I
remarked on this, he would laugh and say the credit did not belong to
him but rather to Fantine, who told him all he knew.

This brings me to another striking trait in the man--his devotion to
animals and their worship of him. Dogs were his for his whistle, and
horses once touched by his hand would whinny a welcome if he only neared
the stable door. When he held a moment's silent conference with a cat,
it behooved the owner to watch lest pussy followed the charmer, and the
way birds looked at him was positively uncanny.

Good God! I am writing this as though he were dead, and my heart is
beating louder than the great clock in this silent Court Room!

Warren is not a handsome man, honey. You must not picture any Prince
Charming in his person. He has--he has red hair. There--one would think
I was making a confession. How he would laugh at me! He always says I
try to m