It had grown late; lights were brought in and placed before the judge, upon whose scarlet robes and pale, agitated face they flickered strangely in the draught from an open window at the back of the court-house. The greater part of the building was in shadow; here and there a chance ray of light rested on one or two in a row of raised faces, and threw some insignificant countenance into startling temporary distinctness. A breathless hush pervaded the whole room. Every eye was fixed on the central figures of the scene--on the criminal as he stood with hands still grasping the side of the dock, his head defiantly raised, his shoulders braced as if to support a blow; on the judge, whose pale features quivered with emotion as he donned the black cap and uttered the fatal words which condemned Andrew Westwood to meet death by the hangman's hand. "And may the Lord have mercy upon your soul!" The words were scarcely spoken before a loud scream rang through the hall. Westwood turned round sharply; his eyes roved anxiously over the throng of faces, and seemed to pierce the gloom that had gathered about the benches in the background. He saw a little group of persons gathered about the body of a child whom they were carrying into the fresh air. It was his own little daughter who had cried out and fainted at the sound of those fateful words. The prisoner was instantly removed by two warders; but it was noted that before he left the dock he threw up his hands as if in a wild gesture of supplication to the heavens that would not hear. He made eager inquiries of the warders as to the welfare of his child; and it was perhaps owing to the compassion of one of them that the chaplain came to him an hour later in his cell with news of her. She was better, she was in the hands of kindly women who would take care of her, and she would come to see her father by-and-bye. A convulsive twitch passed over Andrew's face. "No, no," he said; "I don't want to see her. What good would that do?" The chaplain, a kindly man whose sensibilities were not yet blunted by the painful scenes through which he had constantly to pass, uttered a word of remonstrance. "Surely," he said, "you would like to see her again? She seems to love you dearly." "I'm not saying that I don't love her myself," said the man, turning away his face. Then, after a moment's pause, and in a stifled voice--"She's dearer to me than the apple of my eye. And that's where the sting is. I'm to go out of the world, it seems, with a blot on my name, and she'll never know who put it there." "If you saw her yourself----" "Nay," said Westwood resolutely--"I won't see her again. She'd remember me all her life then, and she'd better forget. You're a good man, sir, and a kind--couldn't you take her away somewhere out of hearing of all this commotion, to some place where they would not know her father's story, and where she'd never hear whether he was alive or dead?" The chaplain shook his head.