as surely and confidently before to his brother Cyril's. On the
whole, the judge summed up strongly in Guy's favour. He wiped his
clammy brow and looked appealingly at the bar. As the jury would
hope for justice themselves, let them remember to mete out nothing
but strict justice to the accused person who now stood trembling
in the dock before them.

All the court stood astonished. Could this be Gildersleeve? Atkins
would never have summed up like that. Atkins would have gone in
point-blank for hanging him. And everybody thought Gildersleeve
would hang with the best. Nobody had suspected him till then of
any womanly weakness about capital punishment. There was a solemn
hush as the judge ended. Then everybody saw the unhappy man was
seriously ill. Great streams of sweat trickled slowly down his brow.
His eyes stared in front of him. His mouth twitched horribly. He
looked like a person on the point of apoplexy. The prisoner at the
bar gazed hard at him and pitied him.

"He's dying himself, and he wants to go out with a clear conscience
at last," some one suggested in a low voice at the barristers'
table. The explanation served. It was whispered round the court
in a hushed undertone that the judge to-day was on his very last
legs, and had summed up accordingly. Late in life, he had learned
to show mercy, as he hoped for it.

There was a deadly pause. The jury retired to consider their
verdict. Two men remained behind in court, waiting breathless for
their return. Two lives hung at issue in the balance while the jury
deliberated. Elma Clifford, glancing with a terrified eye from
one to the other, could hardly help pitying the guiltiest most.