"I wouldn't trade places with you now, Judge Henderson," said Hod Brooks, after a time. "If I knew I had been responsible for what we saw last night, as you were responsible--I'd never raise my head again. "As for the United States Senate, Judge, do you think you're fit to go there? Do you think this is blackmail now? Do you think you want to try this murder case? Do you think you want to try this case against this boy--your son--her son? There may be men worse than you in the United States Senate, but I will say it might be full of better. You're never going there, Judge. And you're never going to try this case." "You've got me, Hod," croaked the ashy-faced man. "Yeh, Judge, I have! But that's not the question." "What do you mean?" "You swore the oath of justice and support of the law when you were admitted to this bar. You've broken your oath--all your oaths. Are you going to throw yourself on the court now and ask for forgiveness?" Henderson stood weakly, half supporting himself against the desk edge. He seemed shrunken all at once, his clothing fitted him less snugly. A roughened place showed on the side of his shining top hat--the only top hat in Spring Valley. "I've tried this case," said Hod Brooks sharply. "I've tried it before your own conscience. It took twenty years for a woman to square herself. I'm going to ask the court to send you up for twenty years. You murdered a good woman. That's a light sentence." A large fly was buzzing on the window-pane in the sunlight, and the sound was distinctly audible in the silence that now fell in the little room. It might indeed have been twenty years that had passed here in as many minutes, so swift a revolution had taken place. The making over of a soul; the cleansing of a life; the changing of an entire creed of conduct; the surrender of a dominating inborn trait; the tearing down and building over a vain and wholly selfish man. "I think she's a good woman," said Hod Brooks simply, after a time. "So do I!" broke out Judge Henderson at length, with a sudden gasp. "So do I! She's a good woman. I knew it last night. I've known it all along, in a way. It all came over me last night--I saw it all plain for the first time in all these years. Hod! You're right. I don't deserve mercy. I don't ask it--I'd be ashamed to." "Religion," said Hod Brooks, quite irrelevantly, "is not altogether confined to churches, you know. A man's conviction may hit him anywhere--even in the office of the county treasurer of Jackson County. But if I was a preacher, Judge Henderson, I'd be mighty glad to hear you say what you have said." In his face there showed some sort of strange emotion of his own, a sort of yearning for the understanding of his own nature by this other man; and some sort of rude man's sympathy for the broken man who stood before him. "You both were young," said he softly and irrelevantly. "I'm not your judge."