A touching picture, and very sweet and attractive withal, Editha Dalton made, standing there so unconscious of herself, or that _she_ was guilty of any breach of decorum; her fair hair floating like gleams of sunlight upon her graceful shoulders, her sweet face flushed and full of pain, her deep blue eyes filled with tears and raised beseechingly to the judge, her delicate hands clasped imploringly and half-outstretched toward him, as if seeking for mercy in the sentence he was about to pronounce. The old man’s face lost its habitual sternness for a moment, and his own eyes softened almost to tenderness, as he caught the sweet tones, and turned to look upon her, so beautiful in her appealing attitude. It was not often that a culprit found one so earnest and beautiful to plead his cause. The able lawyer who had had charge of the case for the young man, with all his eloquence, had not moved him as did this fair maiden, with her flushed, pained face, her pleading eyes, her outstretched hands. A murmur of sympathy sounded again throughout the room, and a wave of regret swept over the judge’s heart as he turned from the girl to the prisoner, feeling himself more than half convinced of the truth of her words, as he marked again the noble face and the honest expression of the clear, unflinching eyes. But some one pulled Editha Dalton hastily back into the chair from which she had arisen, and a stern voice uttered in her ear: “Edie! Edie! sit down, child! What _are_ you thinking of, when your own evidence did more toward convicting him than that of any one else?” “Oh! I know it! I know it! but he is _not guilty_ all the same. It is only the cruel force of circumstances that makes him appear so!” she sobbed, wildly, burying her face, with a gesture of despair, in her handkerchief. The judge’s keen ears caught the words, and his sharp eyes wandered again from her to the prisoner, a shade of uneasiness in their glance. He marked the pallor that had overspread his face, making him almost ghastly; the yearning, troubled look in the eyes now fixed so sadly upon the weeping girl; the firmly compressed lips and clenched hands, which told of a mighty effort at self-control and something whispered within him that the jury was at fault—that the evidence, though so clear and conclusive, was at fault and, since there could be no reprieve, to make the sentence as light as possible. “Prisoner at the bar, stand up,” he said, and Earle Wayne instant arose. Tall, manly, and with conscious dignity, he confronted the judge to receive his sentence, his eye never faltering, his face calm and proud, though still exceedingly pale. “You have heard the verdict of the jury—have you anything to say?” “Nothing, save what I have already said, your honor. _I am not guilty of the crime with which I am charged, and if I live I will yet prove it!_”