“I must stoop always,” he said. “I find myself doing it now when I walk. Tom and I used to be just of a height. Now I am the shorter. I noticed it last night when we stood together before the glass.” It was a little change to think of this and wonder at it, but the pain came back again when he heard some one outside of the building say to another, “Fine day for the trial. The town will be full. They say there isn’t standing room now at the hotels.” Paul stopped his ears lest he should hear more. The town was already full and would be fuller of people come to see him,—Paul Ralston,—once the head of everything, and now brought so low that when he left the jail it would be under an official escort and on his way to the prisoner’s dock accused of murder. The sun was now up and he could hear the stir of life in the street and on the water where row boats were passing, full of people, who had come from Johnstown a few miles up the coast to be on hand when the doors of the Court House were opened. He guessed their object and stopped his ears again to shut out the sound of their voices, which rang as cheerfully as if they were going to his bridal. Once he thought of Clarice. Was she thinking of him in that dread hour? Was she praying for him? He believed so, and bowing his head he prayed for her that God would give her strength to keep up under the strain of that day. Mrs. Stevens was bringing his breakfast, but he turned from it with loathing. Then as he saw the look of disappointment on her face he tried the coffee and the steak, telling her both were excellent, and adding with a smile, “They say criminals eat heartily the very morning before they are hung. I am a criminal in the eyes of the world, but I am not to be hung to-day, and I can’t eat. You are so kind; you always have been. Father will not forget it when I am gone.” An hour later his father and mother came in, the latter so weak that she could scarcely walk. All night at intervals she had been upon her knees, praying for her boy, and when her husband bade her take some rest she answered, “If Paul were dying in my arms I could not rest, and I feel as if he were dying to us. To-morrow and next day will tell the story. We have done all we can do. Only God can help us now.” When morning came her strength was nearly gone and she was lifted half fainting into the carriage which took her to the jail through the streets full of people hurrying to the Court House. “Oh, see them, going to look at Paul,” she said to the judge, who was scarcely less affected than herself. Tom, who drove them, scowled defiantly at the crowd, a few of whom were nearly knocked down by the spirited horses he did not try to check. “Careful, Tom, careful. You’ll run over some of them,” the judge said to him. “Ought to be run over,” was Tom’s reply, as he went dashing along, until the jail was reached.