"Pooh! pooh!" came the querulous objection. "She seems to have
hypnotized you." Then, as a new thought came to the magnate, he
spoke with a trace of anxiety. There were always the reporters,
looking for space to fill with foolish vaporings.

"Did she say anything against me, or the store?"

"Not a word," the lawyer replied, gravely. His smile of
appreciation was discreetly secret. "She merely told us how her
father died when she was sixteen years old. She was compelled
after that to earn her own living. Then she told how she had
worked for you for five years steadily, without there ever being
a single thing against her. She said, too, that she had never
seen the things found in her locker. And she said more than
that! She asked the judge if he himself understood what it means
for a girl to be sentenced to prison for something she hadn't
done. Somehow, Gilder, the way she talked had its effect on
everybody in the courtroom. I know! It's my business to
understand things like that. And what she said rang true. What
she said, and the way she said it, take brains and courage. The
ordinary crook has neither. So, I had a suspicion that she might
be speaking the truth. You see, Gilder, it all rang true! And
it's my business to know how things ring in that way." There was
a little pause, while the lawyer moved back and forth nervously.
Then, he added: "I believe Lawlor would have suspended sentence
if it hadn't been for your talk with him."

There were not wanting signs that Gilder was impressed. But the
gentler fibers of the man were atrophied by the habits of a
lifetime. What heart he had once possessed had been buried in