her shoulder, and forced her to be quiet. It made something
of a scene in court. The judge looked annoyed. Then Sally had a fit of
the giggles and finally had to leave the room.

But when the turn of Milly's hero came to speak in his own defence,
Milly had a choking sensation in her throat and felt the warm tears run
over her cheeks. He, too, was brave. He talked of the wrongs of society,
and Milly realized somehow that she was part of the society he was
condemning,--one of the more privileged at the feast of life, who made
it impossible for the many others to get what they wanted. Of course his
views were wrong,--all the men she knew said so,--but the pity of it all
in his case, so young and handsome and brave he appeared!

While counsel wrangled and pleaded, while this little group of men
rounded up by the police to stand sponsors for Anarchy and expiate its
horrid creed, so that good citizens might sleep peacefully nights, faced
death, the three girls sat and stared at the spectacle. It passed
slowly, and the prisoners were condemned by a jury of their peers quite
promptly, and the grave judge sentenced them "to hang by their necks
until dead." At the dreadful words Milly gasped, then sobbed outright.

No matter what they had done, at least what _he_ had done, how wrong
_his_ ideas about society were, _he_ was too young and too handsome for
such an awful fate. If he had only had about him from the beginning the
right influences, if some woman had loved him and guided him
aright,--Milly hoped that he might yet be spared, pardoned if possible.
Mopping the tears from her eyes she left the court-room for the last
time, with a vague sense of the wretchedness of life--sometimes.

* * * * *

That very night, however, she was as gay and bright as ever at the
Kemps' dinner. A fascinating young lawyer was of the party, a newcomer
to the city, who dared to raise his voice in that citadel of
respectability, the Kemps' Gothic dining-room, and declare that the
whole affair was a miserable travesty of justice,--a conspiracy framed
up by the police. "They have the city scared," he said, "and nobody
dares say what he thinks. The newspapers know the truth, but the big men
make the papers keep quiet." It was all quite thrilling, Milly thought.
Perhaps, after all, her young man was not a villain. The table of sober
diners sat very still, but afterwards the banker pronounced what the
young lawyer said