The hearing of testimony for the State went on all through that day. It was late when the State rested its case—so late that the defence would not be taken up until the following day. It was all in—for weal or for woe. In some way, all of the State’s witnesses—with the possible exception of Munson, who would argue with the angel Gabriel at the last day and offer to give him lessons in trumpet blowing—had been imbued with the earnest, honest, straightforward policy of the State’s counsel. Gordon’s friends were hopeful. Langford was jubilant, and he believed in the tolerable integrity of Gordon’s hard-won jury. Gordon’s presentation of the case thus far had made him friends; fickle friends maybe, who would turn when the wind turned—to-morrow,—but true it was that when court adjourned late in the afternoon, many who had jeered at him as a visionary or an unwelcome meddler acknowledged to themselves that they might have erred in their judgment. As on the previous night, Gordon was tired. He walked aimlessly to a window within the bar and leaned against it, looking at the still, oppressive, cloudy dampness outside, with the early December darkness coming on apace. Lights were already twinkling in kitchens where housewives were busy with the evening meal. “Well, Dick,” said Langford, coming up cheery and confident. “Well, Paul, it’s all in.” “And well in, old man.” “I—don’t know, Paul. I hope so. That quiet little man from down country has not been much heard from, you know. I am afraid, a moral uplift isn’t my stunt. I’m tired! I feel like a rag.” Langford was called away for a moment. When he returned, Gordon was gone. He was not at supper. “He went away on his horse,” explained Louise, in answer to Langford’s unspoken question. “I saw him ride into the country.” When the party separated for the night, Gordon had not yet returned. CHAPTER XVII GORDON RIDES INTO THE COUNTRY Gordon rode aimlessly out of the little town with its twinkling lights. He did not care where he went or what direction he pursued. He wanted to ride off a strange, enervating dejection that had laid hold of him the moment his last testimony had gone in. It all seemed so pitifully inadequate—without Williston,—now that it was all in. Why had he undertaken it? It could only go for another defeat counted against him. Though what was one defeat more or less when there had been so many? It would be nothing new. Was he not pursuing merely the old beaten trail? Why should the thought weigh so heavily now? Can a man never attain to that higher—or lower, which is it?—altitude of strifeless, unregretful hardness? Or was it, he asked himself in savage contempt of his weakness, that, despite all his generous and iron clad resolutions, he had secretly, unconsciously perhaps, cherished a sweet, shy, little reservation in his inmost heart that maybe—if he won out— “You poor fool,” he said, aloud, with bitter harshness.