So much of the State’s side of the case was known to Brant’s friends--by what means Forsyth’s young men could best have explained--and there was consternation among them in just proportion. If the tide could not be stemmed before the rapidly approaching day of the trial, the judge knew he should go into court without any case. And, making due allowance for the change that had recently been wrought in public sentiment, he had every reason to fear the worst for his client. “I tell you, Forsyth, the man will hang in spite of everything we can do.” So much the judge was impelled to say in one of the many conferences with the editor, and Forsyth had nothing to offer in rebuttal. “I’m afraid he will,” said the editor. And then: “We are all in the same boat, and on the same side of the boat--all but Harry Antrim. He still asserts his belief in Brant’s innocence. In his way he is as obdurate as Brant himself. But it is entirely sentiment on his part. I wish his faith had a better foundation.” So Antrim had wished many times; and after having racked his brain for a fortnight for something tangible wherewith to buttress his belief, he was finally indebted to the chapter of accidents for a clew which seemed to point most hopefully. It was in the afternoon of that day in which Judge Langford had summed up Brant’s case in the talk with the editor. Antrim had been rummaging in his safe for a missing paper, and had chanced to come upon the sealed envelope given him by Brant for safe-keeping on the morning after the burglary at Mrs. Seeley’s. His first impulse was to send it posthaste to the judge; his next was to break the seal and read the sworn evidence of Harding’s guilt in the year-agone crime committed in Taggett’s Gulch. Five minutes later he was writing a note to Dorothy, begging her to come quickly to the office. Dorothy answered the note in person, and Antrim took her into the superintendent’s room and closed the door. What he had to say brooked neither listeners nor interruptions. “I’m awfully glad you came right away,” he began. “I was afraid something might hinder you, and what I want to talk about won’t wait.” Dorothy sat down in the superintendent’s big chair and unpinned her veil. “I was just getting ready to come down for Isabel when Tommie came. He said it was a ‘rush message,’ so I caught the next car.” “That was lucky.” Antrim was tramping up and down before her, full to bursting with his news. Suddenly he stopped and confronted her. “Dorothy, would you still be glad to believe that Brant isn’t guilty?” She sat up very straight at this and the sensitive chin quivered a little. “That is a hard question, Harry. If it wasn’t Mr. Brant----” “I know what you are thinking about,” he broke in. “But just leave Will out of it entirely; try to forget that he was there.” “If I could do that, the question--your question--would answer itself.”