e been so miserable
and terrified since I heard this, and I was so full of hope before. Tell
me, is it true? Will Reuben be sent to prison after all?"

In her agitation she laid her hands on my arm and looked up into my face
with her grey eyes swimming with tears, and was so piteous, so trustful,
and, withal, so bewitching that my reserve melted like snow before a
July sun.

"It is not true," I answered, taking her hands in mine and speaking
perforce in a low tone that I might not betray my emotion. "If it were,
it would mean that I have wilfully deceived you, that I have been false
to our friendship; and how much that friendship has been to me, no one
but myself will ever know."

She crept a little closer to me with a manner at once penitent and
wheedling.

"You are not going to be angry with me, are you? It was foolish of me to
listen to Mr. Lawley after all you have told me, and it did look like a
want of trust in you, I know. But you, who are so strong and wise, must
make allowance for a woman who is neither. It is all so terrible that I
am quite unstrung; but say you are not really displeased with me, for
that would hurt me most of all."

Oh! Delilah! That concluding stroke of the shears severed the very last
lock, and left me--morally speaking--as bald as a billiard ball.
Henceforth I was at her mercy and would have divulged, without a
scruple, the uttermost secrets of my principal, but that that astute
gentleman had placed me beyond the reach of temptation.

"As to being angry with you," I answered, "I am not, like Thorndyke, one
to essay the impossible, and if I could be angry it would hurt me more
than it would you. But, in fact, you are not to blame at all, and I am
an egotistical brute. Of course you were alarmed and distressed; nothing
could be more natural. So now let me try to chase away your fears and
restore your confidence.

"I have told you what Thorndyke said to Reuben: that he had good hopes
of making his innocence clear to everybody. That alone should have been
enough."

"I know it should," murmured Juliet remorsefully; "please forgive me for
my want of faith."

"But," I continued, "I can quote you the words of one to whose opinions
you will attach more weight. Mr. Anstey was here less than half-an-hour
ago--"

"Do you mean Reuben's counsel?"

"Yes."

"And what did he say? Oh, do tell me what he said."

"He said, in brief, that he was quite confident of obtaining an
acquittal, and