room, a woman tore herself loose from the
attendants holding her, and running swiftly across the room leaped upon
the platform. She was a slight little woman, almost a child in
appearance beside the man's gigantic stature. She stood looking at him a
moment with heaving breast and great sorrowful eyes from which the tears
were welling out and flowing down her cheeks unheeded.

The man's face softened. He put his hands gently upon the sides of her
neck. Then, as she began sobbing, he folded her in his great arms. For
an instant she clung to him. Then he pushed her away. Still crying
softly, she descended from the platform, and walked slowly back across
the room.

Hardly had she disappeared when there arose from the street outside a
faint, confused murmur, as of an angry crowd gathering. The judge had
left his seat now and the jury was filing out of the room.

The Chemist turned to his friends. "Shall we go?" he asked.

"This trial--" began the Big Business Man. "You haven't told us its
significance. This man--good God what a figure of power and hate and
evil. Who is he?"

"It must have been evident to you, gentlemen," the Chemist said quietly,
"that you have been witnessing an event of the utmost importance to us
all. I have to tell you of the crisis facing us; this trial is its
latest development. That man--"

The insistent murmur from the street grew louder. Shouts arose and then
a loud pounding from the side of the building.

The Chemist broke off abruptly and rose to his feet. "Come outside," he
said.

They followed him through a doorway on to a balcony, overlooking the
street. Gathered before the court-house was a crowd of several hundred
men and women. They surged up against its entrance angrily, and were
held in check there by the armed attendants on guard. A smaller crowd
was pounding violently upon a side door of the building. Several people
ran shouting down the street, spreading the excitement through the city.

The Chemist and his companions stood in the doorway of the balcony an
instant, silently regarding this ominous scene. The Chemist was just
about to step forward, when, upon another balcony, nearer the corner of
the building a woman appeared. She stepped close to the edge of the
parapet and raised her arms commandingly.

It was Lylda. She had laid aside her court robe and stood now in her
glistening silver tunic. Her hair was uncoiled, and fell in dark masses
over her white shoulders, blowin