ty was like a fir-tree--a thing of no
deep roots and easily torn up.

"But I do not take that view, Margaret," continued her husband, and she
looked at him with consternation. Was he now to turn champion, he who
only yesterday had doubted? "And I want you to consider whether you can
agree with me. There is to begin with the woman herself, Stella
Ballantyne. I saw her for the first time yesterday, and to be quite
honest I liked her, Margaret. Yes. It seemed to me that there was nothing
whatever of the adventuress about her. And I was impressed--I will go
further, I was moved--dry-as-dust old lawyer as I am, by something--How
shall I express it without being ridiculous?" He paused and searched in
his vocabulary and gave up the search. "No, the epithet which occurred to
me yesterday at the dinner-table and immediately, still seems to me the
only true one--I was moved by something in this woman of tragic
experiences which was strangely virginal."

One quick movement was made by Margaret Pettifer. The truth of her
husband's description was a revelation, so exact it was. Therein lay
Stella Ballantyne's charm, and her power to create champions and friends.
Her history was known to you, the miseries of her marriage, the suspicion
of crime. You expected a woman of adventures and lo! there stood before
you one with "something virginal" in her appearance and her manner, which
made its soft and irresistible appeal.

"I recognise that feeling of mine," Pettifer resumed, "and I try to put
it aside. And putting it aside I ask myself and you, Margaret, this:
Here's a woman who has been through a pretty bad time, who has been
unhappy, who has stood in the dock, who has been acquitted. Is it quite
fair that when at last she has floated into a haven of peace two private
people like Hazlewood and myself should take it upon ourselves to review
the verdict and perhaps reverse it?"

"But there's Dick, Robert," cried Mrs. Pettifer. "There's Dick. Surely
he's our first thought."

"Yes, there's Dick," Mr. Pettifer repeated. "And Dick's my second point.
You are all worrying about Dick from the social point of view--the
external point of view. Well, we have got to take that into our
consideration. But we are bound to look at him, the man, as well. Don't
forget that, Margaret! Well, I find the two points of view identical. But
our neighbours won't. Will you?"

Mrs. Pettifer was baffled.

"I don't understand," she said.

"I'll explain. Fro