The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Coquette's Victim, by Charlotte M. Braeme

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Title: The Coquette's Victim

Author: Charlotte M. Braeme

Release Date: July 12, 2004 [EBook #12886]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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EVERYDAY LIFE LIBRARY No.1

Published by EVERYDAY LIFE, Chicago

THE COQUETTE'S VICTIM

BY CHARLOTTE M. BRAEME

[Illustration]

CHAPTER I.

The Trial.

Mr. Kent was a very able magistrate. He had sat on the bench for many
years and was considered a man of great legal attainments and skill. He
very seldom erred in his judgment, and being gifted with a natural
shrewdness, he saw the difference at once between a guilty and an
innocent man.

He rarely erred; long practice had made him an adept in reading faces.

But on this morning, the fourteenth of May, he was puzzled. Many cases
had been brought before him. Drunken men dismissed with a fine and a
reprimand, thieves sentenced to weeks or months of imprisonment, wives
with pale faces and bruised arms had given reluctant evidence against
husbands who had promised to love and cherish them until death.

It was a bright May morning, and the sun did his best to pour through
the dusky windows of the police court; a faint beam fell on the stolid
faces of the policemen and ushers of the court, the witnesses and the
lookers-on; a faint beam that yet, perhaps, brought many messages of
bright promise to those present.

A little boy had been sent on an errand with sixpence and had stolen the
money; with many sobs and tears he confessed that he had spent it in
cakes. Mr. Kent looked at the tear-stained face; the untidy brown head
scarcely reached to the table, and the good magistrate thought, with
something like pain at his heart, of a fair-haired boy at home. So he
spoke kindly to the poor, trembling prisoner, and while he strongly
reprimanded, still encouraged him to better ways. The boy was removed,
and then Mr. Kent was puzzled by the prisoner who took his place.

A tall, handsome young man, apparently not more than twenty, with a