do you think?"

"I think," he answered, so slowly that each word fell clearly, "that a
conviction can be had and that I shall get it."

Eleanor did not answer. The chauffeur was holding open the door of her
car, and she walked forward and got into it. She had learned the thing
she had come to learn--a knowledge that the stand he took was an
honorable one. She was glad that his hands were clean, but in her left
side her heart ached like a tooth. He seemed a stranger to
her--unfriendly, remote, remote as a man struggling in a whirlpool would
be remote from even the friendliest spectator on the bank.

A few days later the grand jury found a true bill against Lydia. That
was no surprise even to her friends. Wiley and Albee had both prepared
her for that. The crime for which she was indicted, however, came as a
shock. It was manslaughter in the first degree. Albee was, or affected
to be, pleased. It proved they were bluffing, he said.

"It may cost you a little more on Wiley's bill," he said. "It costs a
little more, I suppose, to be acquitted of manslaughter than of criminal
negligence; but on the other hand it may save you a thousand-dollar
fine. A jury might conceivably find you guilty of a crime for which you
could be fined, but not of one for which the only punishment is
imprisonment."

Bobby thought the indictment showed conclusively that there was some
crooked work going on, and wanted the district attorney's office
investigated. Most of Lydia's friends began to feel that this was really
carrying the thing too far.

Thus New York.

In the neighborhood of Wide Plains it was generally known that O'Bannon
and Foster were working early and late, and that the district attorney's
office was out to get a conviction in the Thorne case.

CHAPTER IX

"Isaac Herrick."

"Here."

"William P. McCaw--I beg your pardon--McCann."

"Here."

"Royal B. Fisher. Mr. Fisher, you were not in court yesterday. Well, you
did not answer the roll. Gentlemen, if you do not answer when your names
are called I shall give your names to the court officer. Grover C.
Wilbur."

"Here."

The county court room with its faded red carpet and shabby woodwork had
the dignity of proportion which marks rooms built a hundred years ago
under the solemn Georgian tradition.

Miss Bennett and Eleanor, guided by Judge Homans' secretary, came in
through a side door, and passing the large American flag which hung
above the judge's empty c