"Come here," said he. "Well have to talk this thing over quietly. This is a terrible matter--you don't know how terrible. There's a lot under this that you don't know at all. Anne, my dear girl, what can I say to you to alter you in this foolish resolve?" "Nothing! I'm going to see his mother this very afternoon. He told me to come, so I could meet his mother----" "You're going to do nothing of the kind!" said Judge Henderson in sudden anger. "You're going to stay here and listen to reason, that's what you're going to do! You undertake to go into a situation which reaches wider than this town, wider than this state, do you? It is your duty, then, to prevent me from _my_ duty? Are you so selfish, so egotistic as all that?" She smiled at him amusedly, cynically, a wide and frank smile, which irritated him unspeakably. He frowned. "It is time now for you to reflect. First--as you say--this young man has no father. His mother----" He paused suddenly, his pallid face working strangely now. The shrill summons of the telephone close at his hand as he sat had caused him to start, but it was with relief. He took down the receiver and placed his hand for the moment over the mouthpiece. "Aurora Lane--you don't know about her?" he began. Then she saw a sudden change of expression which passed over his face. "Yes--yes," he said, into the telephone. "The jury has brought in its verdict? _What's that?_----" The phone dropped clattering from his hand on the desk, so shaking and uncertain was his grasp. He turned to his ward slowly. "You don't know!" said he. "You don't know what that was I have just heard this moment! Well, I'll tell you. Dieudonne Lane has been held to the grand jury--while we've been sitting here. They've charged him with the murder of Tarbush, the city marshal. My God! Anne----" It seemed an hour to both before she spoke. Her face, first flushed, then pale, became set and cold as she looked toward the man who brought this news. Once she flinched; then pulled together. But yesterday a girl, this hour a young woman, now she was all at once mature, resolved. "You heard me, did you not?" he went on, his voice rising. "Charged--with murder! No one in the world knew he was alive--no one but you, and you never told me of him--no one ever dreamed of him till the last twenty-four hours, when he came blundering in here--out of his grave, I say! And in twenty-four hours he has made his record here--and _this_ is his record. Do you know what this means? He may not come through--I want to say the chances look bad for him, very bad indeed." Judge Henderson's smooth face showed more agitation than ever it had in all his life before. "Uncle," she said, after a long time, reaching out a hand to him, "now is your opportunity!" "What do you mean? _My_ opportunity? It's--it's a terrible thing--you don't know."