ice, slightly touched with calm contempt, and there was no
doubting its entire sincerity.

"I think," said Father Orin, slowly, "that these banded robbers and
murderers must have learned of the plan through some one's inadvertence.
It is my opinion that the plan was betrayed by some one who did not mean
to betray it, and who may not have known what he had done."

William Pressley regarded him with an incredulous smile. "It is hardly
likely that the plan can have been revealed in any such way as you
suggest, sir," he said, with the politeness which is more exasperating
than rudeness. "You are certainly overlooking the fact that only a few
knew what the attorney-general intended to do, and that those who did
know are the ablest and most reliable men in the country. It is
therefore utterly out of the question to assume that any one among them,
any man of their intelligence and standing, could have made such a
blunder. Really, my dear sir, if you will pardon my saying so, the idea
is absurd."

The priest made no reply and his eyes were still fixed on the young
lawyer's face, but as he gazed, the expression of his own face changed.
A half smile lighted it for a moment. The good man's sense of humor was
keen. But this passed quickly and in its stead there came the compassion
which any purely human weakness, however great or small, always awoke in
his truly compassionate breast.

The judge apparently had not heard what his nephew said. He always began
to feel impatient as soon as the young man commenced to speak. And he
now gave his tousled head the old, unconscious toss, like a horse
shaking his mane at the lighting of a persistent fly. And then, paying
no more attention to William Pressley and drawing his chair nearer
Father Orin's, he went on with the grave talk. It was he, however, who
did all the talking now; the priest had suddenly become a passive
listener. He had no more ideas to advance.

The three men turned many anxious looks on the open door. It was still a
framed space of misty gray, filled only with the melancholy mystery of
the wintry dawn. It seemed to the watchers to stay unchanged for a long
time, as it always does to those who watch for its brightening in
trouble and anxiety. Yet while they longed for the light they dreaded to
see it, as the troubled and alarmed always dread, lest it should reveal
something terrible which the darkness has concealed. Their words grew
fewer, also, under this strain of wai