erdict? _What's that?_----"

The phone dropped clattering from his hand on the desk, so shaking and
uncertain was his grasp. He turned to his ward slowly.

"You don't know!" said he. "You don't know what that was I have just
heard this moment! Well, I'll tell you. Dieudonne Lane has been held to
the grand jury--while we've been sitting here. They've charged him with
the murder of Tarbush, the city marshal. My God! Anne----"

It seemed an hour to both before she spoke. Her face, first flushed,
then pale, became set and cold as she looked toward the man who brought
this news. Once she flinched; then pulled together. But yesterday a
girl, this hour a young woman, now she was all at once mature, resolved.

"You heard me, did you not?" he went on, his voice rising.
"Charged--with murder! No one in the world knew he was alive--no one but
you, and you never told me of him--no one ever dreamed of him till the
last twenty-four hours, when he came blundering in here--out of his
grave, I say! And in twenty-four hours he has made his record here--and
_this_ is his record. Do you know what this means? He may not come
through--I want to say the chances look bad for him, very bad indeed."
Judge Henderson's smooth face showed more agitation than ever it had in
all his life before.

"Uncle," she said, after a long time, reaching out a hand to him, "now
is your opportunity!"

"What do you mean? _My_ opportunity? It's--it's a terrible thing--you
don't know."

"Yes, yes. But you say you have been in the place of a parent to me.
That's true--I owe you much--you have been good--you have been kind. Be
good, be kind now! Oh, don't you see what is your duty? Now you can use
your learning, your wisdom, your oratory. You can save Don--for me.
You're my parent--can't you be his, too? We're both orphans--can't you
be a father for us both? Of _course_ you will defend him. He hasn't
much. He couldn't pay you now. But I have money--you've just told me
that I have.

"Oh, no, I don't mean that, about the money--but listen," she went on,
since he made no reply. "Do you think _I'd_ desert him now that he's in
trouble? Do you think any woman of my family would do that? We're not so
low, I trust, either of us, either side. You are not so low as that, I
trust, yourself. Why, you'd not desert anyone, surely not an orphan boy,
just starting out--you'd never in the world do that, I know."

In answer he smoothed out before her on the desk top the crump