"I can't forswear my own professional duties," began Judge Henderson,
his mouth dry in his dull dread, his heart wrenched. He wondered what
Hod Brooks knew, what he was going to do. He knew what must come, but he
was not ready for the hour.

"Come into this room," said Horace Brooks suddenly. "I won't go to your
office, and I won't ask you to come to mine. But come in here, and let's
have a little talk."

They stepped over to the door of the county treasurer's office, across
the hall. It was a room of the sort usual in a country courthouse, with
its high stools and desks, its map-hung walls, its scattered chairs, its
great red record books lying here and there upon the desk top.

A young woman sat making some entry in a book. "Miss Carrie," said
Horace Brooks to her, "Judge Henderson and I want to talk a little
together privately. Please keep us from being disturbed. You run
away--we won't steal the county funds."

Smilingly the clerk obeyed. Brooks turned to Judge Henderson abruptly.

"Look here, Judge," said he.

He pointed to a large framed lithograph which hung on the wall--the same
which had hung on the wall in the library at the exercises of Saturday
night. It was a portrait of the candidate for the United States
Senate--Judge Henderson himself. The latter looked at it for a moment
without comment, and turned back with an inquiring eye.

Brooks was fumbling in the side pocket of his alpaca coat, and now he
drew out from it a good-sized photograph, which he placed face upward on
the desk beside them. It was done in half-profile, as was the portrait
upon the wall.

"Look at this picture too, Judge, if you please," said he, "and then
look back again at the lithograph. That was taken some years ago, when
you were young, wasn't it?"

Judge Henderson flushed lividly. "I leave all those things to the
committee," croaked he.

"--But this one here," said Horace Brooks slowly, "was taken when you
were still younger, _say, when you were twenty-two_, wasn't it?" He
moved back so that Judge Henderson might look at the photograph. He saw
the face of the great man grow yellow pale.

"Where did you get this?" he whispered. "How?"

"I got it of Miss Julia Delafield, at the library, early this morning,"
said Horace Brooks. "I told Miss Julia, whatever she did, to stay in the
library and not to go over to Aurora Lane's house. I--I didn't want her
to see what had happened there. She was busy, but she found this pictu