When his parents were gone Paul threw himself upon his bed and sobbed so loud that the jailer’s wife heard him in the hall outside and cried herself for the unhappy man. Tom came before long, cheerful as usual, but for once his cheerfulness failed in its effect. “Don’t, Tom,” Paul said, “don’t try to rouse hopes which can not be fulfilled, and don’t think me weak if I cry. I shall be braver to-morrow and face it like a man.” They were both crying now,—Paul and Tom, who had broken down for the first time and gave way so utterly that it was Paul’s task to comfort and soothe. “Let _me_ cry a bit, and don’t touch me,” Tom said, shaking off Paul’s hands; then regaining his composure he continued: “We were boys together, Mr. Paul, you the master, I the servant, but you never made me feel that, and now misfortune has brought us very close together, so close that—would you mind if—if—I kissed you as your mother did? I should like to remember it when—.” Tom finished the sentence in his own mind one way, and Paul another as like two girls they kissed each other and said good-bye. Then Paul was really alone through the longest night he had ever known and which seemed the shortest when it was over and daylight looked through the window. He did not go to bed, but sat the whole night through, thinking of what was before him, and feeling sure that he did not reach the reality or know how it would feel to confront his friends and acquaintances and strangers and the rabble, men and women,—more women than men,—who would come to see him and hear him tried for his life. He was glad Clarice was not to be there. All his tenderness for her was in full force; her selfish letter was forgotten, her faults condoned, and she was only the girl he loved and had hoped to make his wife. He would have been glad to have seen her once and heard her say she loved him still, but he felt no hardness towards her because she had kept aloof from him. She couldn’t come, he said, and then he thought of Elithe and his heart gave a sudden throb of something inexplicable to himself. She would be in the courtroom and he was sorry to have her see him humiliated and charged with murder, and sorry for her that she must testify against him. He didn’t blame her. He didn’t blame anybody, although there came into his mind the thought “Why has God allowed this when he knows I am innocent.” He knew prayers had been offered for him in all the churches, for Tom had told him so and during the dark days of his incarceration he had prayed himself as he had never done before. God had not answered and he was still a prisoner, and the day was breaking over the sea, a glorious September day such as he had seen and revelled in many a time in the old life gone forever, for if he were freed it could never be quite the same again. A man, however innocent he might be, who had been tried for his life, could not hold his head as he had held it before.