the long corridor on his way to the jail. The end was close
at hand, a day or two more and his fate would be decided. The
hopelessness of the situation appalled him, stupified him. The evidence
of his guilt seemed overwhelming; he wondered how Elizabeth retained her
faith in him. He always came back to his thought of her, and that which
had once been his greatest joy now only filled him with despair. Why had
he ever spoken of his love,--what if this grim farce in which he was a
hapless actor blundered on to a tragic close! He would have made any
sacrifice had it been possible for him to face the situation alone, but
another life was bound up with him; he would drag her down in the ruin
that had overtaken him, and when it was all past and forgotten, she
would remember,--the horror of it would fill her days!

On that night, as on many another, North retraced step by step the ugly
path that wound its tortuous way from McBride's back office to the cell
in which he--John North--faced the gallows. But the oftener he trod this
path the more maze-like it became, until now he was hopelessly lost in
its intricacies; discouraged, dazed, confused, almost convinced that in
some blank moment of lost identity it was his hand that had sent the old
man on his long last journey. As Evelyn Langham had questioned, so now
did John North: "If not I, then who did murder Archibald McBride?"

In a vain search for the missing handy-man, General Herbert had opened
his purse wider than North or even Evelyn realized. There seemed three
possibilities in the instance of Montgomery. Either he knew McBride's
murderer and testified falsely to shield him; or else he knew nothing
and had been hired by some unknown enemy to swear North into the
penitentiary; or--and the third possibility seemed not unlikely--it was
he himself that had clambered over the shed roof after killing and
robbing the old merchant.

North turned on his cot and his thoughts turned with him from Montgomery
to Gilmore, who also, with uncharacteristic cowardliness had fled the
scene of his illegal activities and the indictment that threatened him
anew. "What was the gambler's part in the tragedy?" He hated North; he
loved Marshall Langham's wife. But neither of these passions shaped
themselves into murderous motives. Langham himself furnished food for
reflection and speculation. Evidently in the most dire financial
difficulties; evidently under Gilmore's domination; evidently burdened