Two days went by. Mr. Drew, Mr. Schoolcraft and Mr. Kauffman were examined and cross-examined, and after them came the first of the expert accountants employed to go over the books. The situation continued to look black for Mr. Hildebrand—if anything a little blacker, for neither of the foregoing witnesses appeared to have been guilty of offending a lady to such an extent that her husband had to order him out of the house.

Mr. Drew received considerable unpleasant attention from the defendant’s counsel, but he came through pretty comfortably. He admitted that he “cleaned up more than half a million” on the deal with the insurance company, and that he was the husband of Mr. Stevens’ sister. He always had been sorry for Mr. Hildebrand, and even now was without animus. Mr. Schoolcraft acknowledged buying and selling the younger Hildebrand’s shares, but was positive that there had been no collusion with Mr. Stevens.

The case began to drag. Sampson lost interest. He attended strictly and no doubt diligently to the evidence, but when the expert accountants began to testify be found himself considerably at sea. He was not good at figures. They made him restless. The rest of the jury appeared to be similarly afflicted. Politeness alone kept them from yawning. Afterwards it was revealed that only one of the twelve was good at figures of any sort: the automobile salesman. He was a perfect marvel at statistics. He could tell you how many miles it is from New York to Oswego without even calculating, and he knew to a fraction the difference in the upkeep of all the known brands of automobiles in America. He made Sampson tired.

Despite the damaging testimony that seemed surely to be strangling her grandfather’s chances for escape, Miss Hildebrand revealed no sign of despair, or defeat. She came in each morning as serene as a May evening, and she left the court-room in the afternoon with a mien as untroubled as when she entered it. .

There was quite a little flutter in the jury box—and outside of it, for that matter—when, on the third morning, she appeared in a complete change of costume—a greyish, modish sort of thing, Sampson would have told you—very smart and trig and comforting to the masculine eye. Sampson who knew more than any of his companions about such things, remarked (to himself, of course)—that her furs were chinchilla. Chinchilla is nothing if not convincing.

It struck him, as he took her in—(she was standing, straight and slim, conversing with that beardless cub of an assistant-assistant district attorney)—that she was, if such a thing were possible, even lovelier than she was in the other gown. No doubt Sampson failed in his sense of proportion. She was undeniably lovelier today than yesterday, and she would continue to go on being prettier from day to day, no matter what manner of gown she wore.

It also occurred to him that the young assistant-assistant was singularly unprofessional, if not actually fresh, in dragging her into a conversation that must have been distasteful to her. He wondered how she could smile so agreeably and so enchantingly over the stupid things the fellow was saying.

Near the close of the noon recess he was constrained to reprove No. 7 for an act that might have created serious complications. He was standing in the rotunda finishing his third cigarette, when Miss Hildebrand approached on her way to the court-room. It had been his practice—and it was commendable—to refrain from staring at her on occasions such as this. A rather low order of intelligence prevented his fellow jurors from according her the same consideration. They stared without blinking until she disappeared from view.

Now, No. 7 meant no harm, and yet he so far forgot himself that he doffed his hat to her as she passed. Fortunately she was not looking in his direction. As a matter of fact, she never even so much as noticed the nine or ten jurors who strewed her path. No. 7 was mistaken, there can be no doubt about that. He thought she looked at him instead of through him, and in his excitement he grabbed for his hat. Perhaps he hoped for a smile of recognition, and, if not that, a smile of amusement. He would have been grateful in either case.

“Don’t do that,” whispered Sampson, gruffly.

“Why not?” demanded No. 7, blinking his eyes. “No harm in being a gentleman, is there?”

“You must not be seen speaking to her—or to any one of the interested parties, for that matter. Do you want to have her accused of bribery or—er—complicity?”

“I thought she was going to speak to me,” stammered No. 7.

“Well, she wasn’t. She has too much sense for that. Good Lord, if counsel for the State saw you doing that sort of thing, they’d suspect something in a second.”

“Haven’t you read about those jury-fixing scandals?” exclaimed the chubby bachelor, surprisingly red in the face. He had almost reached his own hat when Sampson spoke. Four or five of the others glowered upon the offending No. 7. “We can’t even be seen bowing to anybody connected with the case.”

“I saw you throw your cigar away when she came in the door,” retorted No. 7, in some exasperation. “What did you do that for?”

The chubby bachelor looked hurt. “Because I was through with it,” he said. “I don’t hang onto ‘em till they burn my lips, you know.” He deemed it advisable to resort to sarcasm.

“Just remember that you are a juror,” advised No. 4 in a friendly tone. One might have thought he was compassionate.

“No harm done,” said No. 12. “She didn’t even see you. I happen to know, because she was lookin’ right at me when you took off your lid. You didn’t notice me fiddling with my head-piece, did you? I guess not. She don’t expect us to, and so I didn’t make any crack. I—”

“I’d suggest,” said Sampson, with dignity, “that we devote a certain amount of respect to the ethics.”

It was a little puzzling. Ethics is a word that calls for reflection. You’ve got to know just what it means, and after you know that much about it, you’ve got to fix its connection. Several of the gentlemen nodded profoundly, and two of them said: “Well, I should say so.” That night Sampson sat alone in front of his fireplace, his brow clouded by uneasy, disturbing thoughts. A woodfire crackled and simmered on the huge Florentine andirons. Turple, coming in to inquire if he would speak with Mrs. Fitzmorton on the telephone, was gruffly instructed to say that he was not at home, and when Turple returned with the word that Mrs. Fitzmorton was at home and still expecting him to dine at her house that evening, notwithstanding the fact that her guests and her dinner had been waiting for him since eight o’clock—and it was now 8:45—Sampson groaned so dismally that his valet was alarmed. The groan was succeeded, however, by a far from feeble expression of self-reproach, and a tremendous scurrying into overcoat and hat. He reached Mrs. Fitzmorton’s house—it happened to be in the next block north—in less than three minutes, and he was so engagingly contrite, and so terribly good-looking, that she forgave him at once—which was more than the male members of the party did.

They were all married men and they couldn’t forgive anybody for being late. They were always being implored, either pathetically or peevishly, to stop complaining.

Sampson had cause for worry. He had been slow in arriving at the truth, but that afternoon his conviction was established. Miss Hildebrand was depending on him to swing that jury!

She was counting on his intelligence, his decision, his insight, his power to see beyond the supposed facts in the case as presented by the witnesses for the State. He was sure of it. There was nothing in the cool, frank scrutiny that she gave him from time to time that could be described by the most critical of minds as even suggestive of a purpose to influence him, and yet he was sure that she depended on his good sense for a solution of all that was going on.

What disturbed him most was this: there was no distinction between the look she gave him when the State scored a point and when the condition was reversed. The same confident, reasoning expression was in her lovely eyes, as much as to say: “You must see through all this, No. 3—of course you must, or you couldn’t look me in the eye as you do.”

It was as clear as day to him: she was certain that her grandfather was incapable of doing the thing he was charged with doing, and she could not see how a man of his (Sampson’s) perception could possibly think otherwise.

The revelation caused him to forget all about his dinner engagement. Also it caused him to pass an absolutely sleepless night. When he closed his eyes she still looked into them—always the same clear, understanding, undoubting gaze that he had come to know so well. When he lay with them wide open, staring into the darkness, the vision took more definite shape, so he closed them tightly again.

Turple noticed his haggardness the next morning and was solicitous. Now, Turple, at his best, was not entitled to a stare of any description. But Sampson’s rapt gaze was so prolonged and so singularly detached from the object upon which it rested—Turple’s countenance—that the poor fellow was alarmed. He had never seen his master look just like that before. Later on, Sampson told him to go to the devil. Turple was relieved.

The accountants, the detectives and two bookkeepers who formerly had worked under Mr. Hildebrand testified and then the State rested. Through it all the prisoner sat unmoved. Sampson wondered what was going on in the mind of that gaunt, fine-faced old man. What would be his answer to the damning evidence that stood arrayed against him? What could be his defence!

He was sorry for him. He would have given a great deal to be able to rise now from his seat in the jury box and announce candidly that he did not feel that he could bring in a verdict against the old man, reminding the Court and the district attorney that he had said in the beginning that he could not answer for his sympathies.

During the noon recess he took account of his fellow jurors. They were a glum, serious looking set of men. He knew where their sympathies lay and, like himself, they were depressed. The justice—even he—had lost much of the geniality that at the outset had warmed the atmosphere. He no longer smiled; no more did he exploit his wit, and as for his brisk moustache, it drooped.

To the amazement of every one, the defendant’s counsel announced that they had but one witness: the prisoner himself. And every one then knew that no matter what the prisoner said in his own defence, his testimony would be unsupported; it would have to stand alone against odds that were overwhelming.

Slowly but surely it became evident to these more or less discerning men that James Hildebrand’s plea would be for sympathy and not for vindication. By his own story of the dealings with Stevens and Drew and the others he hoped to reach their hearts and through their hearts a certain sense of justice that moves in all men’s minds.

Sampson’s heart sank. While he was convinced that the old man had been cruelly tricked by his business associates, that they had squeezed him dry in order to profit by his misery, that Stevens at least was actuated by a personal grudge which found relief in crushing the father of the man he hated, and that the others may have been innocently or pusillanimously influenced by the designs of this one man who sought control, there still remained the fact that Hildebrand, according to the evidence, had violated the law and was a subject for punishment—if not for correction, as the prison reformers would have it in these days. In no way could the old man’s act be legally or morally justified. Sampson, after hearing the announcement of his counsel, realised that he would have a very unpleasant duty to perform, and he knew that he was going to hate himself.

He had never spoken a word to Alexandra Hildebrand; he had not even heard the sound of her voice—her conversation with counsel was carried on in whispers or in subdued tones—And yet he was in love with her! He was the victim of a glorious enchantment.

And he knew that No. 7 was in love with her—foolishly in love with her; and so was the once supercilious No. 12; and the chubby bachelor; and No. 9 who wanted to stay off the jury because he had to get married in three weeks; and No. 8 who had two sons in the high school, one daughter in Altman’s and two wives in the cemetery; and the sombre-faced No. 1; and all the rest of them! No. 2, who chewed gum resoundingly, no longer chewed. His jaws were silenced. He had an impression that Miss Hildebrand disapproved of gum-chewing, so he stopped. More than this, no man could sacrifice.

The spruce young men from the district attorney’s office were visibly affected—(they really were quite sickening, thought Sampson); and the deputy clerk, the court-room bailiffs, and the stripling who carried messages from one given point to another with incredible speed, now that he had something to keep him moving.

All of them, in a manner of speaking, were in love with her. And she was not in love with any one of them. There could be no doubt about that. They meant absolutely nothing to her.

Sampson wondered if she had a sweetheart, if there was some one with whom she was in love, if those dear lips—and he sighed bleakly. He hated, with unexampled venom, this purely supp............