He also dropped in at the Vanderbilt for lunch on Thursday.

Friday morning he was in the court-room, ostensibly to hear sentence pronounced. He sat outside the railing. Seven of his fellow-jurors straggled in as the hour for convening court approached. Sampson found himself flanked by No. 7 and No. 12, the former a trifle winded after a long run from Worth Street. In a hoarse wheeze he informed Sampson that “she’ll be here in a minute,” and, sure enough, the words were barely out of his mouth when Alexandra Hildebrand entered the court-room with Mr. O ‘Brien.

Sampson was shocked by her appearance. She was pale and tired-looking and there were dark circles beneath her wonderful eyes. She looked ill and worn. His heart went out to her. He longed to hold her close and whisper—

“My God!” oozed from No. 7’s agonised lips. “She’s—she’s sick!”

Sampson kicked him violently on the shin. “She’ll hear you, you blithering idiot,” he grated out.

The courtesy of the Court was extended once more to Miss Hildebrand. She was invited to have a seat inside the railing. If she recognised a single one of the eight jurors who sat outside, she failed to betray the fact by sign or deed. The prisoner, a troubled, anxious look in his eyes, entered and took his accustomed seat instead of standing at the foot of the jury box to await sentence. Miss Hildebrand put her arm over his shoulders and brushed his lean old cheek with her lips. He was singularly unmoved by this act of devotion. Sampson glowered. The old man might at least have given her a look of gratitude, a pat of the hand—oh, anything gentle and grandfatherly. But there he sat, as rigid as an oak, his gaze fixed on the Court, his body hunched forward in an attitude of suspense. He was not thinking of Alexandra.

Hildebrand arose when his name was called, and it was plain that he maintained his composure only by the greatest exertion of the will. Sampson watched him curiously. He had the feeling that the old man would collapse if the Court’s decision proved severe.

The customary questions and answers followed, the old man responding in a voice barely audible to those close by.

“The Court, respecting the wishes of the jurors who tried and found you guilty, James Hildebrand, is inclined to be merciful. It is the judgment of this Court that the penalty in your case shall be fixed at two years’ imprisonment, but in view of the recommendation presented here and because of your previous reputation for integrity and the fact that you voluntarily surrendered yourself to justice, sentence is suspended.”

Other remarks by the Court followed, but Sampson did not hear them. His whole attention was centred on Alexandra Hildebrand. Her slim body straightened up, her eyes brightened, and a heavenly smile transfigured her face.

Sampson felt like cheering!

A few minutes later she passed him in the rotunda. For an instant their eyes met. There was a deep, searching expression in hers. Suddenly a deep flush covered her smooth cheek and her eyes fell. She hurried past, and he, stock-still with wonder and joy over this astounding exposition of confusion on her part, failed utterly to pursue an advantage that would have been seized upon with alacrity by the atavistic No. 12. He allowed her to escape!



0123

Aroused to action too late, he bolted after her, only to see her enter a waiting taxi-cab and—yes, she did look back over her shoulder. She knew he would follow! He raised his hat, and he was sure that she smiled—faintly, it is true, but still she smiled. If he hoped that she would condescend to alter her course, he was doomed to disappointment. The driver obeyed his original instructions and shot off in the direction of Lafayette Street.

The memory of her tribute—a blush and a fleeting smile—was to linger with Sampson for many a weary, watchful day.

The taxi-cab—a noisy, ungentle abomination—was whirling her corporeal loveliness out of his reach and vision with exasperating swiftness, leaving him high and dry in an endless, barren desert. His heart gave a tremendous jump when a traffic policeman stopped the car at the corner above. He set forth as fast as his long legs could carry him with dignity, hoping and praying that the officer would be as slow and as stubborn about—But she must have looked into the fellow’s eyes and smiled, for, with surprising amiability, he signified that she was to proceed. Apparently he was too dazzled to reprimand or caution the driver, for the taxi went forward at an increased speed.

Some one touched Sampson’s elbow. He withdrew his gaze from the vanishing taxi-cab and allowed it to rest in sheer amazement upon the bleak countenance of No. 7.

“She’s going away,” said No. 7 in sepulchral tones.

“Evidently,” said Sampson. “Exceeding the speed limit while she is about it, too.”

“I mean,” said the other, “she’s going to take a long journey. She’s leaving New York! That taxi is full of satchels and valises and stuff, and the driver has orders to get her to the Hudson tube by eleven o’clock. I heard that much anyhow, hangin’ around here. Say, do you know there is another woman in that cab with her? There sure is. I saw her plain as day. Kind of an old woman with two or three little satchels and one of them dinky white dogs in her lap.”

“A lady’s maid,” said Sampson.

“Where do you suppose she’s going?”

“How should I know?” demanded Sampson severely.

“And why is she running away without grandpa? What’s going to become of the old man? Seems as though she’d ought to hang around until he’s—”

“I daresay she knows what she is doing,” said Sampson, disturbed by the same thoughts.

“Maybe he’s going to join her later on?” hopefully. “Over in Jersey somewhere.”

“Very likely. Good-bye.” Sampson wrung the limp hand of No. 7 and made off toward Broadway.

He lunched with a friend at the Lawyers’ Club. In the smoking room afterwards, he came face to face with the assistant district attorney who had prosecuted the case of James Hildebrand. His friend exclaimed:

“Hello, Wilks! You ought to know Mr. Sampson. He’s been under your nose for a week or ten days.”

Wilks grinned as he shook hands with the exjuror. “Glad to know you as Mr. Sampson, sir, and not as No. 3. We had a rather interesting week, of it, didn’t we?”

Sampson was surprised to find that he rather liked the good-humoured twinkle in Wilks’s eyes. He had thoroughly disapproved of him up to this instant. Now he appeared as a mild, pleasant-voiced young man with a far from vindictive eye and a singularly engaging smile. Departing from his r?le as prosecutor, Wilks succeeded in becoming an uncommonly decent fellow.

“Interesting, to say the least,” replied Sampson.

Wilks had coffee with them, and a cigar.

“I must say, Mr. Sampson, that you jurors had something out of the ordinary to contend with. There isn’t the remotest doubt that old Hildebrand is guilty, and yet there was a wave of sympathy for him that extended to all of us, enveloped us, so to speak. At the outset, we were disposed to go easy with him, realising that we had a dead open and shut case against him.

“We awoke to our danger when the trial was half over. That is to say, we awoke to the fact that Miss Alexandra Hildebrand was likely to upset the whole pot of beans for us. You have no idea what we sometimes have to contend with. There is nothing so difficult to fight against as the force of feminine appeal. Men are simple things, you see. We boast about our righteous strength of purpose, but along comes a gentle, frail bit of womanhood and we find ourselves—well, up in the air! Miss Hildebrand had a decidedly agreeable effect on all of us. It is only natural that she should. We realised what it all meant to her, and I daresay there wasn’t one of us who relished the thought of hurting her.

“Her devotion was really quite beautiful,” observed Sampson, feeling that he had to put himself on record.

“I understand how you jurors felt about her and, through her, about the old man. The State is satisfied to let him off as you recommended. It is more than likely that he was badly treated in those deals with Stevens and Drew, and if he can rehabilitate himself I think we will have done well not to oppose leniency. At any rate, his granddaughter has something to rejoice over, even though she may have been shocked by your decision that he is guilty.”

“What do you know about her, Mr. Wilks?” inquired Sampson.

“Nothing in particular. She is an orphan, as you know, and I understand she has been residing with her grandfather in Switzerland. She returned to this country with him at the time of his voluntary surrender three months ago. His bail was fixed at twenty thousand dollars, and she tried to raise it, but failed. She has been trying to sell his Bronx property, but, of course, that sort of thing takes time. I understand that a deal is about to be closed, however, thanks to her untiring efforts, and the old man may realise handsomely after all. I suppose the Cornwallis Realty and Investment Company will bring civil action to regain the fifty thousand lost through his defection. If he is sensible he will restore the amount and—well, that will be the end of it.”

“Why didn’t he sell it long ago?”

“He couldn’t very well manage it without coming to New York, and he was so closely watched that he couldn’t do that without running a very great risk. Evidently she, believing absolutely in his innocence, induced him to give himself up and have his name cleared of the stigma that was upon it. This is mere conjecture, of course.”

“Well, she’s a brick, at any rate,” said Sampson, with some enthusiasm.

Wilks smiled. “That verdict, at least, is universal. Justice, however, has miscarried in more cases than I care to mention, simply because some little woman proves herself to be a brick. No doubt you will recall any number of such cases right here in New York. If we had had the remotest idea what Miss Hildebrand was like, we would have put up a strenuous kick against her sitting beside the prisoner where you all could see and be seen. She made it hard for you to convict the old man, and she certainly wormed the recommendation to the Court out of you. To tell you the truth, we feared an acquittal. When the jury stayed out all night I said to myself: ‘We’re licked, sure as shooting. ‘The best we looked for was a disagreement. I’ve been told that the first half dozen ballots stood eleven to one for acquittal. So you see, I wasn’t far off in my surmise. It has taught me a lesson. There will be no more attractive, thoroughly upsetting young ladies to cast spells over judge, jury, and lawyers if I can help it. I hope you will pardon me for saying it, Mr. Sampson, but I am firmly convinced if there had been no Miss Alexandra Hildebrand in the case you gentlemen would have brought in your verdict in twenty minutes.”

“I suppose you know that I am the one who stood out against the eleven,” said Sampson.

“I suspected as much. I don’t mind saying that the State counted on you, Mr. Sampson.” Sampson started. How was this? The State counted on him also? Suddenly he flushed.

“I had a notion that Miss Hildebrand counted on me, Mr. Wilks.”

“She did,” said the lawyer. “I think she lost a little of her confidence, however, as the trial progressed. She appeared to be devoting nearly all of her energies to you. You, apparently, were the one who had to be subdued, if you will forgive the term. She is the cleverest, shrewdest young woman I’ve ever seen. She is the best judge of men that I’ve ever encountered—far and away better than I or any one connected with our office. When that jury was completed I realised, with a sort of shock, that it was she who selected it. She made but one mistake—and that was in you. There is where we were smarter than she. I knew that you would do the right thing by us, in spite of your very palpable efforts to get off. If there had been some one else in your place, Mr. Sampson, James Hildebrand would have been acquitted.”

“Possibly,” said Sampson, with a sinking of the heart. He felt like a Judas! She had made but one mistake, and it was fatal!

“As I was saying,” went on Wilks, blowing rings toward the ceiling, “women play thunder with us sometimes. A friend of mine from Chicago dined with me last night. He is in the State’s Attorney’s office out there and he’s down here on business. You ought to hear him on the subject of women mixing up in criminal cases. He says it’s fatal—if they’re pretty and appealing. Nine times out of ten they have more nerve, more character and a good deal more intelligence than the average juryman, and Mr. Juror is like wax in their hands. Take a case they had out there last fall—the Brownley case—you read about it, perhaps. Young fellow from Louisiana got into bad company in Chicago, and went all wrong. Gambled and then had to rob his employers to get square with the world. His father and sister came up from New Orleans and made a fight for him. They got the best legal talent in town, and then little sister sat beside brother and petted him from time to time. A cinch! The jury was out an hour. Not guilty! See what I mean? And you remember the Paris case a year or two ago when the detectives nabbed a couple of international card sharks and bunco men after they had worked the Atlantic for two years straight without being landed? French juries tried ‘em separately. One of them got five years and the other got off scot free. Why? Because his pretty young wife turned up and—well, you know the French! Woman is lovely in her place, but her place isn’t in the court-room unless she favours the prosecution.”

“They’re like good-looking nurses,” said Sampson’s friend. “They make a chap forget everything else.”

“Same principle,” said Wilks. “Patients and juries are much the same. They require careful nursing.”

Sampson was like a lost soul during the weeks that followed the trial. The hundred and one distractions he sought in the feverish effort to drive Alexandra Hildebrand out of his thoughts failed of their purpose. They only left him more eager than before. He longed for a glimpse of her adorable face, for a single look into her eyes, for the smile she had promised as she rode away from him, for the sheer fragrance of her unapproachable beauty. She filled his heart and brain, and she was lost to him.

The most depressing fits of jealousy overtook him. He tried to reason with himself. Why shouldn’t she have a sweetheart? Why shouldn’t she be in love with some one? What else could he expect—in heaven’s name, what else? Of course there was one among all the hundreds............