Dr. Cheyney gathered up the reins: conversation seemed improbable, but he noticed that Davidson had gone back into the house. They were quite alone under the leaden sky, and the fresh wind blew moist across their faces. “By the way,” said the old man carelessly, “Judge Hollis has been with Juniper all night and at six this morning I heard he had a confession.” Jacob looked up into the doctor’s eyes, his own narrowing. “Ah,” he said, “I presume Judge Hollis makes out that Juniper did the shooting?” “Don’t know,” said Dr. Cheyney, slapping the reins on Henk’s broad back, “heard there would be an arrest to-day,” and he drove slowly off, the old wheels sinking in first one rut and then another, and jolting the carriage from side to side. Jacob Eaton stood looking after it a minute, then he turned and went into the house. It was now seven o’clock in the morning. That evening, at the corresponding hour, Colonel Royall and Diana were dining alone at Broad Acres. The fact that Diana had been drawn into an undesirable publicity through her unexpected connection with the celebrated case troubled Colonel Royall profoundly. He was an old-fashioned Southern gentleman, and believed devoutly in sheltering and treasuring his beautiful daughter; every instinct had been jarred upon by the mere fact of her appearance on the witness-stand, and the circumstances, too, which made it practically his own fault. He blamed himself for his carelessness in ignorantly leaving her in a room used by the prisoners and, in fact, for taking her there at all. Yet he fully sympathized with her in her courage. Behind it all, however, was a memory which stung, and the knowledge that an old scandal is never really too dead to rise, like a phœnix, from its ashes. All through the latter part of the summer the colonel had been unwell, and lately Diana had watched him with deep concern. Dr. Cheyney pooh-poohed her solicitude, said the colonel was as sound as a boy of ten, and only advised a cheerful atmosphere. But Diana, sitting opposite to him that day at dinner, saw how white and drawn his face was, how pinched his lips, how absent his gentle blue eyes. She felt a sudden overwhelming dread and found it difficult to talk and laugh lightly, even when he responded with an eagerness that was an almost pathetic attempt at his natural manner. They were just leaving the dining-room when Judge Hollis was announced, and Diana was almost glad, even of this interruption, though she was conscious of a sharp dread that they were to hear more of the trial. A glance at the judge’s face as he stalked into the room confirmed this impression; he was no longer wholly triumphant, his rugged jaw was locked, and his shaggy brows hung low over his keen eyes. He walked into the center of the room as usual and banged his hat down on the table. “David,” he said abruptly, “how deep are you in with Jacob Eaton?”