's heart. "Lila,
perhaps the secret of Kenyon's mother is no affair of mine, but neither
is Grant Adams's fate after I turn him back to the jailer, an affair of
mine. But you make Grant's affair mine; well, then--I make this secret
an affair of mine. If you want me to release Grant Adams--well, then, I
insist." The gray features of his wife stopped him; but he smiled and
waved his hand grandly at the miserable woman, as he went on: "You see
my wife has bragged to me once or twice that she knows who Kenyon's
mother is, Lila, and now--"

The daughter put her hands to her face and turned away, sick with the
horror of the scene. Her heart revolted against the vile intrigue her
father was proposing. She turned and faced him, clasping her hands in
her anguish, lifted her burning face for a moment and stared piteously
at him, as she sobbed: "O dear, dear God--is this my father?" and
shaking with shame and horror she turned away.

CHAPTER L

JUDGE VAN DORN SINGS SOME MERRY SONGS AND THEY TAKE GRANT ADAMS BEHIND A
WHITE DOOR

After arguments of counsel, after citation of cases, after the applause
of Market Street at some incidental _obiter dicta_ of Judge Van
Dorn's about the rights of property, after the court had put on its
tortoise-shell rimmed glasses, which the court had brought home from its
recent trip to Chicago to witness the renomination of President Taft,
after the court, peering through its brown-framed spectacles, was
fumbling over its typewritten opinion from the typewriter of the offices
of Calvin & Calvin, written during the afternoon by the court's legal
_alter ego_, after the court had cleared its throat to proceed with
the reading of the answer to the petition in habeas corpus of Grant
Adams, the court, through its owlish glasses, saw the eyes of the
petitioner Adams fixed, as the court believed, malignantly on the court.

"Adams," barked the court, "stand up!" With his black slouch hat in his
hand, the petitioner Adams rose. It was a hot night and he wiped his
brow with a red handkerchief twisted about his steel claw.

"Adams," began the court, laying down the typewritten manuscript, "I
suppose you think you are a martyr."

The court paused. Grant Adams made no reply. The court insisted:

"Well, speak up. Aren't you a martyr?"

"No," meeting the eye of the court, "I want to get out and get to work
too keenly to be a martyr."

"To get to work," sneered the court. "You mean to keep others fr