Presently he found himself in Oxford Road. He did not know how he had come there. He had no recollection of passing through the streets which led him there, but as he noticed the gables of Owens College he realised where he was. He remembered some time before being an honoured visitor at this centre of education. The principal of the college had sought to do him honour. The professors made much of him. He was strangely interested in the fact. Why should it be? Owens College was nothing to him. It was simply the centre of one of the newer universities. Why, then, did it interest him? Then he remembered that Paul had been a student there. He had travelled all the way from Brunford so that he might attend certain classes--and Paul was his son! Always this! Always this! In whichever direction his mind travelled, it always came back to this point--Paul Stepaside was his son! Slowly he trudged back towards the city again. Presently he found himself outside Strangeways Gaol. He looked at the grim, forbidding-looking building. He thought of the creatures who lay there, some awaiting trial, others suffering the penalty of their misdoings. During the very assizes which he was now attending he had committed several to suffer there; but it was not of them he thought. What were they?--merely the off-scourings of Lancashire life. The only one who mattered was his own son, and he lay there in a dark cell, waiting for the morrow. He did not ask himself whether he was innocent or guilty. At that moment it did not seem of importance. Paul was his son! He, Judge Bolitho, was his father. He, who had never realised that he had a son, suddenly woke up to the fact that his son lay there in Strangeways Gaol, while he, his father, was the judge. If he could only go to him, talk with him, it might help him to clear his mind, help him to understand. But he could not do that. He had been too long a servant of the law to so far transgress against the most elementary usages of the law. No judge was allowed to see a prisoner alone while his case was being tried. But if he could--if he could! He called to mind Paul's face as he had seen it through the day. Even when he sat on the Bench he remembered being struck by it. It was so calm, so proud, so unyielding. He had felt angry that this man, accused of murder, had seemed to treat his accusers, as well as his judge and counsel, with a kind of contempt. Now he felt almost proud of him. Paul Stepaside was no ordinary man. And he was his son! Again he looked at the gloomy, grim pile. Of what was his boy thinking? He lay in a black prison cell, with the shadow of death hanging over him. What were his feelings? During his career Judge Bolitho had been brought into contact with some of the darkest characters in the land. He knew something of what men suffered for their crimes. And at that moment he realised what Paul was suffering.