The court-room was crowded to suffocation. The corridors were jammed, the pavements, park and street outside a solid mass of humanity.

The prison van plowed its way through the throng. Gordon stepped out, with handcuffs jingling on his wrists, and straightened his giant figure between the two officers who led him.

A cheer suddenly burst from the crowd and echoed through the court-room.

There was no mistaking that cry. He had heard it before. He knew. He had killed a banker. They were glad of it and proud of him. In muttered curses and cheers they said so. He was the champion of a class, and the murder of an enemy had made him a hero. No matter the right or wrong. Down with every banker—what did they care!

Ruth met him in the anteroom, followed him into the prisoner’s dock and took her place by his side.

The bill of indictment was read.

“The People against Frank Gordon.”

With terrible memories the title rang through his soul. The people, for whom he had fought, for whom he had suffered, worked and dreamed, had put him on trial for his life. What a strange fate! The faces grew dim, and a sense of illimitable and awful ruin crushed him.

A soft hand stole gently into his, and its warmth cleared his brain.

He looked around the room and, to his surprise, saw dozens of people he had helped in his ministry of the Pilgrim Church. Just in front of him sat a woman who, under the inspiration of his preaching, had given her fortune to found an orphanage for homeless girls, and was spending her life in happy service as its presiding genius.

She nodded and smiled, and her eyes filled with tears.

There was a stir in the group of lawyers behind him, and the old woman who had kissed him the day Ruth was watching pushed to his side, seized his hand, choked, and could say nothing. She had come all the way from Virginia to cheer him.

Ludlow, his faithful deacon, he saw, and near him sat Van Meter. The little black eyes were solemn and the mouth drawn with sorrow. Over against the wall, jammed in the crowd, he saw Jerry Edwards, who was still telling the story of his life with reverent wonder and love. He clasped both hands together, shook them over the heads of the crowd, and smiled.

A feeling of awe came over him as he thought of the eternity of man’s deeds, going on and on forever, whatever might be his own fate.

He looked curiously at Barringer, the young Assistant District Attorney, who was conducting the case against him. In the dark-brown eyes, keen and piercing, there was deadly hostility. He had become famous as a relentless public prosecutor. He came of a long line of great lawyers of the old South, and the breath of a court-room was born in his nostrils. Gordon was chilled by the cold, clear ring of his penetrating voice.

While the jury was being impaneled, Ruth sat by Gordon, eagerly trying to see the invisible secrets of every juror&r............