tenor of the speech was the right to be
relieved from the obligation of an error; an error that had involved him
unwittingly by reason of assurances which the developments of the case
had now set aside. And through it all there was the manifest wish to do
the prisoner no vestige of injury.

After this speech of his attorney the conviction of the man was
inevitable. He sat stooped over, his back bent, his head down, his
thin hands aimlessly in his lap like one who has come to the end of
all things; like one who no longer makes any effort against a destiny
determined on his ruin.

The thing had the overpowering vitality which evil things seem always
to possess, and the woman felt helpless against it; so utterly, so
completely helpless that it was useless to protest by any word or
gesture. She could have gotten up and explained the true motive behind
this man's speech; she could have repeated the dialogue in his office;
she could have asserted his unspeakable treachery; but she saw with an
unerring instinct that against the skill of the man her effort would be
wholly useless. With his resources and his dominating cunning he would
not only make her words appear obviously false, but he would make them
fasten upon her a malicious intent to injure the man who had undertaken
her husband's defense; and somehow he would be able, she felt, to divert
the obliquity and cause it to react upon herself.

This was all clear to her, and like some little trapped creature of
the wood that finds escape closed on every side and no longer makes any
effort, she remained motionless.

The judge was an honorable man, concerned to accomplish justice and not
always misled by an obvious intent. The proceeding did not please him,
but he knew that no benefit, rather a continued injury, would result to
the prisoner by forcing the attorney to go on with a case which it
was evident that he no longer cared to make any effort to support. He
permitted the man to withdraw. Then he spoke to the prisoner.

"Have you any other counsel?" he asked.

The prisoner did not look up. He replied in a low, almost inaudible
voice.

"No, Your Honor," he said.

"Then I shall appoint some one to go on with the case," and he looked up
over the docket before him and out at the few attorneys sitting within
the rail.

It was at this moment that the woman, crying silently, without a sound
and without moving in her chair, heard behind her the voice which she
had hear