her sentence, but burst out: "I
don't care for Tom Van Dorn's court, his grand folderol and mummery of
the law. He's going to send a man to death to-night because his masters
demand it. And we must stop it--you and Lila and I, Kenyon."

Kenyon reached out, tried to rise and failed, but grasped her strong,
effective hand, as he cried: "What can we do--what can I do?"

She went into the Doctor's office and brought out two old crutches.

"Take these," she said, "then I'll help you down the porch steps--and
you go to your mother! That's what you can do. Maybe she can stop
him--she has done a number of other worse things with him."

She literally lifted the tottering youth down the veranda steps and a
few moments later his crutches were rattling upon the stone steps that
rose in front of the proud house of Van Dorn. Margaret had seen him
coming and met him before he rang the bell.

She looked the dreadful wonder in her mind and as he took her hand to
steady himself, he spoke while she was helping him to sit.

"You are my mother," he said simply. "I know it now." He felt her hand
tighten on his arm. She bent over him and with finger on lips,
whispered: "Hush, hush, the maid is in there--what is it, Kenyon?"

"I want you to save Grant."

She still stood over him, looking at him with her glazed eyes shot with
the evidence of a strong emotion.

"Kenyon, Kenyon--my boy--my son!" she whispered, then said greedily:
"Let me say it again--my son!" She whispered the word "son" for a
moment, stooping over him, touching his forehead gently with her
fingers. Then she cried under her breath: "What about that
man--your--Grant? What have I to do with him?"

He reached for her hands beseechingly and said: "We are asking your
husband, the Judge, to let him out of jail to-night, for if the Judge
doesn't release Grant--they are going to mob him and maybe kill him! Oh,
won't you save him? You can. I know you can. The Judge will let him out
if you demand it."

"My son, my son!" the woman answered as she looked vacantly at him. "You
are my son, my very own, aren't you?"

She stooped to look into his eyes and cried: "Oh, you're mine"--her
trembling fingers ran over his face. "My eyes, my hair. You have my
voice--O God--why haven't they found it out?" Then she began whispering
over again the words, "My son."

A clock chimed the half-hour. It checked her. "He'll be back in half an
hour," she said, rising; then--"So they're going to mo