"Well," said he, "maybe you did right, and in any case this isn't the time and place to discuss it. My professional hours"--and he turned away and walked slowly up the stairs to his own office, intent upon the purpose already prominent in his mind. The arc light illumined fully the great town clock in the cupola of the courthouse. The hands pointed to a quarter of one, after midnight. The deliberations of the jury of Spring Valley might have been said to have concluded at the time when Aurora Lane, her son Don, and old Hod Brooks--the last group of the slow procession--themselves turned the corner and emerged upon the public square. The matter of bringing in the verdict was another affair. CHAPTER VIII THE EXTRAORDINARY HORACE BROOKS Something made Aurora Lane uneasy. She turned now and extended her hand to the tall man who walked at her side. "Good night, Mr. Brooks," said she. But old Hod Brooks only put his hands deeper in his pockets and slouched on alongside. "I'll just go on along with you to the gate. It's hot tonight, isn't it? I don't know when we've had such a spell." She could not well dismiss him now, so indeed the three walked yet a while together. Don Lane still was silent, moody. There was little of the Jesuit in his own frank soul. He knew nothing of dissembling, and had no art of putting a good face upon a bad matter. All these complications which so swiftly had come into his life seemed to him only a terrible and overwhelming thing in the total. The morrow was coming for him--nay, it already was at hand, and he knew what that must bring of additional grief. Anne! Anne! He must tell her. He must leave her. Never in all his care-free life had he been so wretched, so miserable, as he was now. Moreover, for reasons he could not stifle he did not like the presence of Brooks here, even though he and his mother must acknowledge the debt under which he had laid them that day. "I'll tell you, Mother," said he after a time, when he had turned off the square into their own street. "Just excuse me for a few minutes, won't you? It's so hot and stuffy that I don't feel that I can sleep. I'll just take a little run down the street, if you don't mind." "But why, Don?" she inquired. "You see, I've always been used to keeping fit, and I don't like to break my training--we always had to exercise in college, on the teams. I don't feel good when I don't. I'm used to doing my half mile or so every night just before I go to sleep." "Huh!" said Old Hod Brooks, looking at the young man appraisingly. "So that's how you keep in training, eh? Well, it seems to work all right!" His sudden gusty laughter sounded loud in the night, but it lacked the note of ease. "Go on, go on," he added--"as you get older maybe you'll find it takes all your gimp to take care of your mind and your money, and you'll let your body just about take care of itself. But go ahead--I'll just walk on down with your mother."