"You always admired him," she went on, the hard ring of misery in her tone. "You admire him yet. Oh, men like him have such strange and wicked power! Satan Sanderson!--it was a fit name. What right has he to be rector of St. James, while you--" He put out a hand in flinching protest. "Jessica! Don't!" he begged. "Why should I not say it?" she retorted, with quivering lips. "But for him you would never be here! He ruined your life and mine, and I hate and despise him for a selfish hypocrite!" That was what he himself had seemed to her in those old days! The edge of a flush touched his forehead as he said slowly, almost appealingly: "He was not a hypocrite, Jessica. Whatever he was it was not that. At college he did what he did too openly. That was his failing--not caring what others thought. He despised weakness in others; he thought it none of his affair. So others were influenced. But after he came to see things differently, from another standpoint--when he went into the ministry--he would have given the world to undo it." "That may have been the Harry Sanderson you knew," she said stonily. "The one I knew drove an imported motor-car and had a dozen fads that people were always imitating. You are still loyal to the old college worship. As men go, you count him still your friend!" "As men go," he echoed grimly, "the very closest!" "Men's likings are strange," she said. "Because he never had temptations like yours, and has never done what the law calls wrong, you think he is as noble as you--noble enough to shield a murderer to his own danger." "Ah, no, Jessica," he interposed gently. "I only said that in my place, he would do the same." "But _you_ are shielding a murderer," she insisted fiercely. "You will not admit it, but I know! There can be no justice or right in that! If Harry Sanderson is all you think him--if he stood here now and knew the whole--he would say it was wicked. Not brave and noble but wicked and cruel!" He shook his head, and the sad shadow of a bitter smile touched his lips. "He would not say so," he said. A dry sob answered him. He turned and leaned his elbows on the narrow window-sill, every nerve aching, but powerless to comfort. He heard her step--the door closed sharply. Then he faced into the empty cell, sat down on the cot and threw out his arms with a hopeless cry: "Jessica, Jessica!" CHAPTER XLIII THE LITTLE GOLD CROSS Jessica left the jail with despair in her heart. The hope on which she had fed these past days had failed her. What was there left for her to do? Like a swift wind she went up the street to Felder's office.