Bancroft turned half away, with a tightening of his lips under his brown moustache. "Very well. I'll not trouble you with any more advice on the subject. But when you meet with disaster, as you undoubtedly will, you must remember that you've got nobody but yourself to blame. How's the trial going?" he asked abruptly. "Pretty fast; the case will go to the jury to-morrow. It won't take them more than ten minutes to reach a verdict. You ought to come in and hear Judge Banks's charge, Aleck. Dan tells me it's sure to be interesting. He says you never can tell whether Banks will deliver an original poem or make up his charge out of quotations from Shakespeare." As the banker went up the hill to his home he remembered that he had heard Rutherford Jenkins was in town. To-morrow he must see the man and try again to induce him to consider the dangers of an indictment for conspiracy. At any rate, he would hold that affidavit of Melgares' up his sleeve, and the time might come when it would be efficacious, even should Jenkins still scoff at it now. Conrad--he had given Conrad another warning, as plain as day, and if the man would rush on recklessly he must take the consequences. José Gonzalez was still at Socorro Springs--an accident could happen--and there was no time to lose! Lucy saw her father coming when he was a block away and, instead of running to the gate to meet him, pretended not to have noticed him, and hastened into the house. Louise Dent remained on the veranda, pushing forward a lounging chair for him as he mounted the steps. She saw that he looked paler and more haggard than usual, and she longed to put her arms about him, as a mother might around a suffering child, and charm away his trouble and wretchedness. In her maiden life the innate mother-longing had found little appeasement; and so, when this youthful love came into her enriched and mellowed heart of middle life, it gathered into itself the repressed yearning of her nature, and the maternal side of it was strong and fierce. She neither condoned nor belittled the sins of the man she loved. For his wrongdoing and the suffering he had caused she felt sorrow, pity, remorse--remorse almost as keen as if she herself had been the guilty one. But her love enfolded him in spite of his sins, and even included them. For she told herself that if he had not been guilty she might never have known him, their paths might never have crossed. In gentle, unobtrusive ways she ministered to his comfort; then, sitting beside him, her calm brow and steady eyes giving no sign of the tumult in her heart, she talked with sympathy and interest, gradually leading his thoughts away from the present into happy plans for the future. With keen satisfaction she saw the weary, desperate look fade from his face and eyes, giving place to one of comfort and content, and the assurance that she had made him forget his troubles, even for a little while, filled her heart with pleasure.