"But something stuck in my mind. Now, this morning, getting ready to prepare my case, defending this boy, I went over to Miss Julia's library. I still remembered what I had seen. I found this picture there--she had that other picture there, hanging on her wall, too. She had them both! One was on the wall and the other on her desk. Now, she had certainly established some connection in her own mind between those two pictures, or else she wouldn't have had them there both right before her." "Then you, too, know," interrupted Henderson, "the story of those two women--how they brought him up from babyhood--and kept the secret? Why did Miss Julia do that?" "Because she was a woman." "But why didn't she tell?" "Because she was a woman." "But why--what makes you suppose she ever would care in the first place for this boy when he was a baby?" "Again, because she was a woman, Judge!" "She came and told me all about her friendship for Aurora. But she admitted she didn't know who the father of the boy was. Then why should she connect me with this?" "The same reason, Judge--because she was a woman! "And when you come to that," he added as he turned toward the door, "that covers our whole talk today. That's why I got you to come here. That's why I'm interested in this case. That's why I've made you try this case yourself, here, now, Judge, before the court of your own conscience. A crime worse than murder has been done here in this town to Aurora Lane--because she was a woman! She's borne the brunt of it--paid all her debts--carried all her awful, unspeakable, unbelievable load--because she was a woman! "And," he concluded, "if you ask me why I was specially interested in the boy's case and yours and hers--I'll tell you. I gave up--to you--all my hope of success and honor and preferment just so as to help her all I could; to stand between her and the world all I could; to help her and her boy all I could. It was because she was a woman--the very best I ever knew." CHAPTER XXII MISS JULIA It was now ten o'clock of this eventful morning in quiet old Spring Valley. A hush seemed to have fallen on all the town. The streets were well-nigh deserted so far as one might see from the public square. Only one figure seemed animated by a definite purpose. Miss Julia Delafield came rapidly as she might across the street from the foot of the stair that led up to Judge Henderson's office. She had hobbled up the stair and hobbled down again, and now was crossing the street that led to the courthouse. She came through the little turnstile and tap-tapped her way up the wide brick walk. Her face, turned up eagerly, was flushed, full of great emotions.