I'd have done that. Yes--I wanted to give her her
chance. I couldn't give her her chance. It looks as though she didn't
have one, never has had, never can have.

"Now, if I hadn't seen you last night right where I did--if I didn't
believe that somewhere inside of you there was just a trace of
manhood--it's not very much--it's damned little--I wouldn't have asked
you to come in here to talk. I'd have waited until I got you in the
courtroom. I'd have waited until I got you on the platform, and then I'd
have taken your heart out in public. I'd have broken you before the
people of this town. I'd have flayed you alive and prayed your hide to
grow so I could take it off again, and I'd have hung it on the public
fence. But, you see--last night----My God!

"I wouldn't trade places with you now, Judge Henderson," said Hod
Brooks, after a time. "If I knew I had been responsible for what we saw
last night, as you were responsible--I'd never raise my head again.

"As for the United States Senate, Judge, do you think you're fit to go
there? Do you think this is blackmail now? Do you think you want to try
this murder case? Do you think you want to try this case against this
boy--your son--her son? There may be men worse than you in the United
States Senate, but I will say it might be full of better. You're never
going there, Judge. And you're never going to try this case."

"You've got me, Hod," croaked the ashy-faced man.

"Yeh, Judge, I have! But that's not the question."

"What do you mean?"

"You swore the oath of justice and support of the law when you were
admitted to this bar. You've broken your oath--all your oaths. Are you
going to throw yourself on the court now and ask for forgiveness?"

Henderson stood weakly, half supporting himself against the desk edge.
He seemed shrunken all at once, his clothing fitted him less snugly. A
roughened place showed on the side of his shining top hat--the only top
hat in Spring Valley.

"I've tried this case," said Hod Brooks sharply. "I've tried it before
your own conscience. It took twenty years for a woman to square herself.
I'm going to ask the court to send you up for twenty years. You murdered
a good woman. That's a light sentence."

A large fly was buzzing on the window-pane in the sunlight, and the
sound was distinctly audible in the silence that now fell in the little
room. It might indeed have been twenty years that had passed here in as
many minutes, so swift a revolu