Since she had sent the telegram to stop Seth, Olivia had not left the house; and though she had regained her strength, there was a look on her face, an expression of indefinable suspense and terror and sadness which almost drove the poor squire distracted. But in his mind, as in others, the thoughts of all that the morrow night might mean to Harold Faradeane blotted out all else, even the remembrance of his darling’s situation: married to a man to whom she had not spoken since her wedding day, and who had gone off, left the country on “important business,” as he had written, with no intimation of his return. But the finishing stroke to his anxiety was dealt him by Olivia herself, when, on the eve of the eventful day, she announced her intention of being present at the trial. “You!” exclaimed the poor squire, aghast. “My--dear--Olivia!” gasped Aunt Amelia. But Olivia glided round to where her father sat, and stole her arms round his neck. “Papa, you will not try and prevent me?” she said, in a strange voice, at once pleading and resolute. “But--but you have been so ill, are still weak and unfit for the slightest excitement. How will you bear to see that poor fellow standing there, and being tried for his life? My dear, my dear, think!” and he stroked her hair with a trembling hand. “I have thought, dear,” she said, quietly, laying her pale face against his. “I must go! I should die if I stayed at home to wait, wait, wait! Besides”--and her eyes flashed--“will not all his enemies be there--people who believe that he committed this wicked crime--and are only his friends to be absent?” The squire kissed her and sighed. “Have your own way, my dear. But I wish--I wish that Bartley were here!” he added, with a troubled frown. “I have heard nothing from him.” She drew away from him suddenly, and without a word left the room. All that night she lay awake, looking at the silent stars with hot, tearless eyes, thinking of Harold Faradeane in his narrow cell, waiting the verdict of life or death; and going over and over all the points of the strange mystery, which grew darker and more impenetrable the more she struggled to pierce it. The morning broke with all the mature splendor of late summer; and as Bessie dressed her, she still thought of the man awaiting his fate, the man whose faith and honor she would have answered for with her life. The trial was to begin at ten; but long before that time the court was crowded and all the avenues were blocked with eager and curious people, who were excitedly discussing the incidents of the murder and the chances of the prisoner. Not a few of them had been present at the entertainment, and heard him recite the tragic poem of “Eugene Aram,” and the sensation he had produced was recalled, and put in evidence against him. No wonder he had made them all shudder and tremble: he who was capable of committing a murder himself, they said.