d. Here was an
opportunity to show to the public that Judge Owen, arbiter of the legal
destinies of his fellow-men when they did not range beyond a certain
insignificant number of dollars, was at once a Solon and a Draco in his
own domestic relations. Great men _will_ develope themselves at some
period or other in their lives, however they may previously have been
kept back by adverse circumstances; and Judge Owen had never yet enjoyed
the opportunity of showing half his mighty energies. Armed with the
double power of a parent and the law, he felt that he could combat
anything--even a young and delicate woman: gifted with a rigid sense of
right which rose above all personal considerations, he felt that to that
right he could sacrifice anything--even the privacy and sanctity of his
domestic relations.

The great men of old had done something in that way: Brutus had laid his
son, without a tear or a groan, on the altar of his country; Virginius
had slain his daughter when her perilled honor demanded that violent
deed; and only half a century before his own time, Napoleon had given up
a beloved Empress and married a royal nobody, for the sake of preserving
the dynasty that his people so demanded. It only remained for William
Owen, Judge, to emulate those great examples and drag his daughter out
of the theatre!

It may have been that Judge Owen did not think of quite all those great
examples, as he walked broadly and pompously down the aisle, disturbing
the audience just when the curtain was rising on the second piece; but
he certainly bore himself as if he remembered all of them and a few
hundreds more. Anxious spectators looked at him as he came down,
speculating painfully whether he was likely to take his seat in front of
_them_, and calculating what would be their chances of seeing in that
event. But the Judge was not going to sit down--no! At the gate he
encountered a momentary obstruction, in the shape of the usher who
looked after the orchestra tickets; but he swept him away as a spring
freshet might carry away a bundle of obstructing sedge, by a majestic
wave of the hand and the information that he was merely going down there
for a moment on business.

Then he strode on down the aisle, unobserved as yet by the lovers, who
sat in the seat next the front and within three or four places of the
end of the row, enjoying the dramatic entertainment and each others'
company about equally. Perhaps they sat a very little c