ess. No
one has, no one ever will. They may wrong another man, but they'll not
suspect the right one."

She felt the strong young arm of Anne still about her, and so went on,
nodding again toward Judge Henderson--"I asked him to defend his own
son--you heard me, then? And he's told me he's hired to hang his son!
And I called him 'Judas.' And I pray God to sink him in hell if he does
this work. After all, there must be a hell somewhere--I think there must
be. This is not right--it's not right! I've stood it all till now, but I
can't stand this."

"Wait!" exclaimed Judge Henderson. "Give me time to think, I tell you!
My whole life's up on this, as well as yours. You've had twenty years to
think about this, and I've not had that many minutes. You and I've not
met, I say--our paths have lain totally apart. It was in the past--we'd
lived it down."

"_We_ had lived it down!" Aurora Lane's laugh was bitter enough, and she
made no other comment.

Still she felt, closer and closer, the warm young body of the girl who
stood by her as the two women faced the man in the ancient and undying
battle of sex.

"Well, I dropped that case," resumed Judge Henderson, "name or claim the
reason as you like. But _this_ case is different----"

"Why?" asked Anne Oglesby. "What's the difference between the two cases?
You say you didn't know, then. Now you know."

"But I've my reputation to keep clean, Anne! The higher you climb, the
riskier the ladder. I could drop that little case yesterday, but let me
drop _this_ case, with all the whole town back of it--and all my whole
political party back of it, too--that's another matter!"

"Is it, indeed!"

"Yes!" he rasped. "I put Judge Reeves on the bench here. It's a big
case. If I withdrew a second time--if things got stirred up and people
began to talk--why, that would be enough to put Old Hod Brooks on the
scent. He'd well enough take care of all the rest! It would be the end
of my career--in twenty minutes. There'd be nothing left of my
chances--there'd be nothing left of my reputation--the work of twenty
years would be undone. I'd be ruined!"

"The work of twenty years!" whispered Aurora Lane to herself. "Twenty
years! And--ruin!" Her voice rose again. "What about us others? You're
talking about yourself, your reputation, your success--how about Don?
His _life's_ at stake. So is mine--I'd not survive it if they killed my
boy."

"What's he to you, anyhow?" broke out Judge Henderson--"