alone, with his head a little bent forward, looking at the table in
front of him. The light fell strongly on his face, making it almost
seem to shine, and I looked at the little white seam of the scar on his
cheek that had helped to identify him, at his black, brooding eyebrows,
and the long lock of hair falling over his forehead, and I thought, so
softly that it scarcely dared to be a thought, "Perhaps I shall never
see any of these again." I felt very quiet, as though I should never
want to laugh or cry again.

I lost all track of time; but the light was falling in the room and
that bright look it had given Johnny's face was turning gray, when,
quite suddenly, he gave a shiver, and pulled himself up in his chair,
nervously drawing in his shoulders. I looked quickly at the judge's
desk and saw a man standing beside it and offering a paper. It
glimmered faintly white as he held it up. I saw the judge lean over,
stretching out his fine, plump hand to take it, and I heard him say:
"Is this your verdict?"

Then instantly the room heard and knew. And almost at the same time I
felt myself lifted to my feet and heard father saying, in a voice I
should have never dared to question, "Quick, your coat!"

I fumbled wildly for the sleeves. I no longer knew what I was doing,
nor why, but obeyed him blindly. I felt there was some reason for this
haste, but even as I tried to follow him out it seemed the whole room
had risen, and a voice somewhere in front of us was speaking--had
spoken.

There was a moment of dreadful silence, and then all about me broke out
quick whispers, suddenly, like a refrain. Not once but over and over,
I heard them around me.

"Murder--yes, yes, murder!"

"Oh, no, guilty in the second degree."

A woman near me fainted, and I wished I could have lost consciousness
so as to be rid of those terrible words, but I could not even cry. I
raised my hand to my throat and pressed it there hard, because there
seemed to be constriction there.

The police were thick about the door, but even they, struggling with
the hoodlums who had crowded the back of the room, couldn't get a
passage open, and the large sergeant of police lifted me up as if I had
been a child and carried me out, and set me down on the sidewalk.
There I stood in the lovely, mild twilight, looking at the familiar
surroundings as if I had never seen them before. Among the vehicles
that filled the street I noticed the Spanish Woman's c