“You have won your cause, Mr. Forsyth.” The judge stopped before the editor’s chair and spoke abruptly. “Go you to the young man and tender him my services, and let me know as soon as may be if he will accept them.” Forsyth sprang to his feet and wrung the elder man’s hand gratefully. “God bless you, Judge Langford; it is a noble thing for you to do! Don’t think for a moment that I undervalue the cost. And now let me tell you something which will make your task easier. One of my young men made some experiments last night in the card room at the Osirian. The result proved conclusively that the shot was fired from some point in line with the door; that it could not well have been fired from the chair in which your son was sitting.” “Thank God for that!” exclaimed the judge fervently; but he added quickly: “I am glad you withheld that--glad you gave me the opportunity to give of my best. You will see Brant at once?” Forsyth hesitated. “As my friend’s friend, I am entirely at his service and yours. But don’t you think it will be as well if you go to him unannounced?” The judge thought about it for a moment. “In view of his most singular obstinacy, perhaps it will. It is worth trying, at all events. I will go to-morrow morning.” “Thank you again,” said the editor, finding his hat. “I presume I need not say that we have little time to lose. The Grand Jury meets to-morrow, and Brant will doubtless be indicted during the week.” “So I have been informed. No matter; we shall be diligent. If the young man will only confide in me we may be able to discover something which will serve to--to palliate his crime and to mitigate the severity of the inevitable sentence.” So spoke the judge, as though the question of his client’s guilt was a question fully answered. But when he went to the door with his visitor he ventured a query which seemed to admit the thin edge of the wedge of uncertainty. “There is no shadow of doubt in your mind, is there, Mr. Forsyth?--as to his guilt, I mean.” “None whatever,” rejoined the editor sorrowfully. And he went his way saddened by the thought that he could answer no otherwise. CHAPTER XXIX IN WHICH A WILFUL MAN HAS HIS WAY SINCE obstinacy, like a hound that is beaten, is constrained to course the truer for the blows of the whipper-in, two days of confinement and the anxious expostulations of Forsyth and Antrim appeared to have no mellowing effect upon the man who stood charged with the murder of James Harding. So far from it, time and the friendly efforts of the allies seemed but to crystallize reticent impulse into a fixed purpose strong to defeat any helpful emprise on the part of his friends.