to be beaten by an untried hand in such a case as that, with such admirable fighting ground as they had. One afternoon, when the court adjourned early on account of a slight illness of one of the jurors, Pembroke mounted his horse and rode off far into the woodlands. When he was out of sight of the village he put spurs to his horse and dashed along the country road. It did him good. He felt already as if he had gained strength enough to last him even at the rate he was using it up if the trial should last two weeks more. Presently he brought his horse down to a walk, and enjoyed the strange restfulness and strength he felt possessing him. Suddenly he came face to face with Olivia Berkeley, riding quietly along the same road. It would be no exaggeration to say he had forgotten her existence. He had not thought once of her or of Madame Koller, or Ahlberg, anybody but Bob Henry. It had not been ten days since he had seen her, but he felt as if it had been ten years. She looked very pretty and Amazon-like on her light-built black, in her close habit. “Papa tells me great things of you,” she said, after the first greeting. “He is up, storming and swearing for breakfast by sunrise, so as to be at the court-house by nine o’clock. I never expected to see him so happy again in dear old Virginia. It is some excitement for him. As for Jane, she is beginning to think Bob Henry a martyr and a hero combined.” Pembroke smiled. It was not the first praise that had reached his ears, but the first that he had heeded. He had quite lost sight in the last few extraordinary days of any outside view of what he was doing--but praise from a pretty woman--especially praise so obviously sincere, is dear to man’s heart. “I am sorry the Colonel should be so uproarious in consequence of the trial.” “He is, I assure you. But I--I--too, feel very great interest in your success. How much more noble this is than dawdling on the continent! You will not get any money by it, but think--the whole county will admire and applaud you--and think of those two poor black creatures.” “You are crediting me with more than I deserve,” he said, finding it difficult to explain that what he was doing had long passed out of the region of a desire for applause, and indeed, of the feeling of compassion which had once inspired him. Now it was the overpowering intellectual and natural bent that was having its own way. Pembroke had been born a lawyer, although he did not suspect it. In taking his thoughts back to that remote period before the trial begun, Olivia had brought Madame Koller to mind.