Deborah was pale as one worn with some great care or long watching. Judas scarcely noted this. Indeed, he forgot the usual formality of salutation as he was admitted into her presence, but burst through the curtained doorway, his big voice ringing out the news like a trumpet announcing victory. "Dion is not a traitor! He is exonerated!" He grasped both her hands in the eagerness with which he told the turn of affairs. Her beaming gratification led him to more enthusiasm. "Agathocles is like Dion. Though in a Greek, good blood will tell. It is like a spring in a muddy lake." "But tell me more of the evidence in his favor," she asked. "The circumstances surely seemed against Dion. Everybody condemned him. Tell me everything. How was it proved that there was no collusion between the father and son? Who testified for them?" "Why, nobody testified on their side," said Judas, as if the need of such testimony had occurred to him for the first time. "My brothers were for condemning them both." "And you had secret knowledge of their innocence?" "None--and yet, Deborah, there were two things which persuaded me. The one was the bearing of the men. I cannot weigh arguments, but I know men. Goodness, honesty, honor--I feel these things in men. I have never been betrayed where I have given my confidence. Sincerity is like sunshine; it is its own evidence." "True; and the other thing which persuaded you to Dion's innocence?" she asked. Judas mused for a while; then he said: "Dion had an advocate." "Who?" exclaimed she. "I thought all were against him." "Not all, Deborah. As I sat there to judge, you yourself seemed to stand before me. You said, 'I have trusted this man; and will trust him. One who has done such things for my father's house cannot be untrue to any one or to any cause.' And, Deborah, you won your case--as you always do with me." "Judas," replied she, "God is in this matter. I was with you, though I knew it not. I was in prayer. I used the very words you have just spoken. I said, 'O Lord, I have trusted this man. One who has done such things for my father's house cannot be untrue.' I prayed that Heaven would send his vindication." "Deborah," replied Judas, "are we two so near to each other that soul speaks to soul without words?" "God is near to us both, Judas. This I know. He leads me, and He leads you, as He leads all men by you. And what think you, my brother--for such, and father, too, you are to me--is not God near to some Gentiles--to Dion? He has given this man our faith, our spirit of sacrifice, though he is separated from us in blood." The conversation was broken into by a loud outcry in the court, which rang through the house and seemed to fall back again in shatters out of the sky. "Dion's free! Dion's free!"