Diana tried twice to speak before she could utter a word. Then she seemed to hear her own voice quite calm. “I do not consider it so. I--I am sorry.” He turned away. “Thank you,” he said abruptly, “I would like to be, at least, your friend.” He added this with a reluctance that told of a bitter struggle with his own pride. Diana held out her hand with a gesture as sweet as it was involuntary. “You are,” she said, quite simply. “Mr. Trench, I--I take it as an honor.” He held her hand, looking at her with an amazement that made her blush deeply. She felt her emotion stifling her, tears were rushing to her eyes. How dreadful it was for him to force her into this position. They were as widely sundered as the poles, and yet she no sooner met his eyes than she wavered and began to yield; she snatched her hand away. “Thank you a thousand times for saying that!” he murmured. She fled; she was half-way up the path; the sunshine and the breeze swept down from Angel Pass. She was conscious of him still standing there and turned and looked back. “Good-bye!” she called softly over her shoulder, and was gone. XVII IT was in the heat of midsummer that Judge Hollis walked into Caleb’s inner office. “Caleb,” he said, “I’m hanged if I haven’t changed the color of my coat and come to your opinion. After this I’m for Yarnall.” Caleb smiled, leaning back wearily in his chair and glancing unconsciously at Sammy, the innocent cause of much scandal in Eshcol, who lay asleep beside Shot on the floor, his chubby arms around the dog’s neck. The smoke of the two great conventions was still in the air. Two weeks before the Republicans had peacefully and hopelessly nominated Peter Mahan for Governor, and the Democrats, after a deadlock and a disgraceful collapse of the opposition, had nominated Aylett. Every politician in the State knew that it had cost the Eaton faction nearly two hundred thousand dollars. There had been a storm of indignation, and Yarnall had come back and put his case in the hands of the Republican lawyer, Caleb Trench! The indignation and chagrin of the older Democratic lawyers added nothing to the beauty of the situation, but Caleb had grasped it silently and was dealing with it. In ten days he had forced the Grand Jury to indict both Aylett and Eaton, along with half a dozen of their lieutenants, and the hour of the great trial was approaching. Feeling ran so high that there were threats on both sides, and it was a common saying that men went armed. The judge banged his broad-brimmed Panama down on the table. “Caleb,” he said grimly, “how much more packing is there to come out of this?”