Sentence, fourteen years' penal servitude. And, once more, as in a dream, Luke saw Cyril Mallow's blotched face gazing at him full of malice, and a look of deadly hatred in his eyes, before he was hurried away. He was then conscious of Mr Swift saying something to him full of praise, and of Serjeant Towle leaning forward to shake hands, as he whispered-- "You beat me, Ross, thoroughly. We'll be on the same side next time." But the dreaminess was once more closing in Luke Ross as with a mist, and in it he saw a pale, agonised face gazing reproachfully in his direction as its owner was being helped out of the court. "God help me!" muttered Luke. "I must have been mad. She will think it was revenge, when I would sooner have died than given her pain." PART THREE, CHAPTER SEVEN. AFTER THE SENTENCE. There was nothing farther to detain Luke Ross, but he remained in his seat for some time, studying the next case people said, but only that he might dream on in peace, for in the midst of the business of the next trial he found repose. No one spoke to him, and he seemed by degrees to be able to condense his thoughts upon the past. And there he sat, trying to examine himself searchingly, probing his every thought as he sought for condemnatory matter against himself. He felt as if he had been acting all day under some strange influence, moved by a power that was not his own, and that, as the instrument in other hands, he had been employed to punish Cyril Mallow. "They will all join in condemning me," he thought, "and henceforth I shall go through life branded as one who hounded down his enemy almost to the death." At length he raised his eyes, and they rested upon the little, thin, wistful countenance of his father, and there was a feeling of bitter reproach for his neglect of one who had travelled all the previous day so as to be present at the trial. He made a sign to him as he rose, and the old man joined him in the robing-room, where Mr Dick eyed him askance as he relieved his master of his wig and gown; and then they returned to the chambers, where Luke threw himself into a chair, and gazed helplessly at his father, till the old man laid a hand, almost apologetically, upon his son's arm. "You are tired out, my boy. Come with me, and let us go somewhere and dine." "After I have disgraced myself like this, father?" groaned Luke. "Are you not ashamed of such a son?" "Ashamed? Disgraced? My boy, what do you mean? I never felt so proud of you before. It was grand!" "Proud!" cried Luke, passionately, "when I seem to have stooped to the lowest form of cowardly retaliation. A rival who made himself my enemy is grovelling in the mire, and I, instead of going to him like an honourable, magnanimous man, to raise him up and let him begin a better life, have planted my heel upon his face, and crushed him lower into the slough."