“Yes; Tuesday of next week. But don’t grieve till you must. We shall be ready, and we shall do all there is to be done.” “One week from to-day--one little week!” She said it over and over to herself in the darkness after her father had gone back to the dining room, and the grain of comfort was swallowed up in foreboding. The week of waiting was outworn at length, slowly for the State’s attorneys, since their case was already made, but all too swiftly for Brant’s friends. At the end of it Judge Langford went into court with as little of weight to say for his client as any advocate of a man who was already tried and found guilty by public opinion could have. Of that little he made the best possible use, and his eloquent plea to the jury had in it all the fire and fervour and pathos of a strong man who had once been the ablest special pleader in a section where eloquence is in some sort a birthright. But the judge fought a losing battle from the beginning; he knew it, and all the others knew it. Though the prisoner had receded from his original determination, and had pleaded “Not guilty,” the plea was taken to be wholly a matter of form. His guilt was tacitly admitted by all, and the judge’s appeal was for clemency rather than for acquittal. “_If_ this man had done this thing,” was the preface to each fresh outburst of eloquent beseeching. None the less the effort proved unavailing. Forsyth had prophesied truly. Public sentiment was aroused, and there was need enough for a stern example on the side of strict justice. Brant’s friends saw all this written out large in the faces of the jury, and were prepared for the verdict. As a mere matter of decent formality the twelve men left the jury box at the close of the judge’s charge to them; but they were back again before the hum of comment in the crowded courtroom was fairly a-buzz. And in the silence which fell upon all the foreman announced the verdict. The prisoner at the bar had been found guilty as charged. There was a little hush, the electrified stillness which precedes a death sentence in any court, and then Judge Langford rose to give notice that an appeal would be taken. The court heard him through patiently, and sentence was suspended accordingly. Then the prisoner was remanded to jail, and the trial was over. Judge Langford had no hope of securing a new trial, and he admitted as much when Forsyth got speech with him. “It was the only thing there was left for us to do,” he said, “and we shall gain nothing by it save a little delay. But having undertaken to plough this young man’s furrow, I shall plough it faithfully to the end.” Once more, as on a former occasion, the judge’s forecasting was rooted in the event. The motion for a retrial was argued, heard, and denied; the prisoner was sentenced, and the day of execution was set for the Friday before Thanksgiving. And at the pronouncing of the sentence that Friday was no more than a fortnight in the future. CHAPTER XXXIV