Mrs. Stevens looked distressed and puzzled. If Paul persisted in this statement she did not know what could save him from State’s Prison at least, if not from a worse fate, and her face was very grave as she took up the tray and carried it from the room. Her husband had gone out before her, and Paul was again alone. He knew the door had not yet been locked, and he could get out if he chose. But he did not choose. The fit of frenzy had passed, leaving him stunned and apathetic. The lamp was burning very dimly, and he could still see the star looking at him through the window, and began to recall his knowledge of astronomy and try to think what star it was and in what constellation. It was very bright, and reminded him first of Clarice’s eyes,—then of Elithe’s,—then it was his mother looking at him, and he was nodding in his chair when the rusty old key in the padlock outside aroused him, and he awoke to find his father and Tom in the room, their arms full of bundles, which they put down one by one. Soft pillows and bed linen, towels and a rug and articles for the toilet, with his dressing gown and slippers, and a large hand mirror. This was Tom’s idea. Indeed, nearly everything was his idea. His quick eyes had noted the bareness of the room,—the absence of everything to which Paul was accustomed, and he had suggested to the judge that they take a few necessaries that night and furnish square the next day. The judge was thinking more of the safety of Paul and how to secure it than of present animal comfort, but he assented to Tom’s proposal and said: “Do what you like. I don’t seem able to think of but one thing,—how to prove my boy innocent,—and of my poor wife.” The news, told her as carefully as it was possible to tell it, and with as much concealed as could be concealed, had sent her into a deadly faint, from which she recovered only to insist that Paul be brought to her, and then to swoon again. This lasted for an hour or more, when she grew quiet, but talked constantly of Paul, begging her husband to go for him and bring him home. “I can’t, Fanny,” the judge said to her. “They will not let him come yet. There must be an examination, or something, and then we trust he will he free. Tom and I are going to see him by and by. What shall I tell him for you?” “Tell him to come. His mother is sick and will die if he stays away. Who says he shot Jack Percy?” They did not tell her the particulars then. She was too weak to hear them. She only knew Paul had been arrested and was lodged in jail and that her husband and Tom were going to get him out. She put a great deal of faith in Tom, who _guaranteed_ Paul’s speedy release over and over again, until she began to believe it, and was comparatively quiet when he started with the judge for the jail,—the carriage as full as it would hold of articles which Tom’s thoughtfulness had suggested. “There’s more coming to-morrow,” he said to Paul, who could not answer at once.