hubbub subsided, the Recorder thanked and dismissed the jury. He
turned to Peacock. "Are there any further charges against the
prisoner?"

"There are none, Your Honor."

The Recorder nodded at Annandale. "You are discharged."

Orr tried to get at him. But at that moment the crowd interfered. In
making a circuit to reach Annandale, he found himself among the
departing jury. They had all left the box, all save the twelfth, who
apparently had stumbled.

About them reporters circled. The foreman was relating that they had
been practically unanimous for conviction, but that one of them, the
twelfth, had insisted so obstinately on the poverty of the evidence
that with him finally they had voted to acquit.

"But where is he?" the foreman interrupted himself to ask. "Where is
the twelfth juror? Where is Durand?"

Then only was it seen that he was still in the box, crouching there,
his face ashen where it was not violet, a hand held to his side.

In a moment he was surrounded. To those nearest he looked and gasped.

"Give him some brandy," a reporter suggested. But now into the little
group Peacock had forced his way. Orr edged nearer.

The juror gasped again. "I am dying," he groaned. "It is my heart.
Send for a priest. I killed him. I am the man."

Skeptically Peacock sniffed. "You killed whom?"

"He is delirious," the reporter exclaimed.

"I killed him," Durand repeated.

"But whom? And why?" Peacock, bending a bit, impressed in spite of
himself, inquired.

Slowly, laboriously, painfully at that, Durand from a pocket drew a
picture.

"Curse him," he muttered. "There he is. He disgraced my _perle_, my
daughter Marie, but she wrote me where to find him and I did; I found
him in the park and I shot him there, through the head, through the
h-head," he stammered and clutched at his heart.

From his hand the picture had slipped. Orr edged closer, stooped for
it, recovered it, then in heightening wonder stared. The picture was a
colored photograph that displayed the chiseled features, wonderful
eyes and thin black mustache of one whom he had known. Above it was
written "Marie's Husband."

"It is Loftus," he exclaimed.

Peacock wheeled. "Loftus," he cried. Instantly to question further, he
turned to the juror again.

But even as he turned he saw that the trial was over. Spasmodically
the man's mouth had twitched, his head had fallen; before a higher
court he had gone.

Peacock, the marvel of it upon him, tu