The trial of Rose Légère was precisely the farce that Violet had expected and that Angel had planned. In ninety of such cases out of every hundred, the chief witnesses for the state are suppressed by fear or force, and the prosecution collapses. Thus, in the present instance, had not the newspapers made first-page announcements of the Légère woman's arrest and so attracted to the case the momentary attention of an effervescing moral public, the District Attorney's office would, in fact, have contented itself with submitting the indictment and asking for a verdict of not guilty. With Violet in the hospital during the session of the Grand Jury, Wesley, now a man of power, had been able to refresh Larry Riley's memory to such a point that, in the hands of the prosecutor, the policeman's evidence was sufficient to insure the finding of a true bill; but when the case was called for trial the situation was vastly changed. The girl that had followed Violet into the net had been cast back into the sea of the city and utterly swallowed up. Violet herself had recanted. The elder inmates of the Légère establishment regarded the law as their natural enemy and, had they been disposed to assist it, could in no wise have been regarded as credible witnesses. The action had, therefore, to rest entirely upon Riley's testimony, and for Riley's testimony there was virtually no corroboration procurable. "You're a good thing--I don't think," remarked the weary-faced young Assistant District Attorney as, on the morning of the trial, he met Dyker in the corridor of the court. "We shoved this case about five years ahead on the calendar to please you, and the night before it's called your witness comes to my office and eats her deposition." Wesley had already heard that piece of news. When, in order to keep an eye upon Violet, he had, some time previously, sought her at Katie's tenement, and had received a series of uncredited vows to the effect that the Irish girl had no idea of the whereabouts of her late charge, he had begun to look for a recantation. It was the sort of game that he had himself frequently played, and he blamed his own lack of foresight in not better providing against it. Then other interests had arisen. The campaign came on apace; there were newer enemies than Rose to be dealt with, and, when the wires leading from the District Attorney's office had informed him that the expected had occurred, he received the word with calm philosophy. "Well," he carelessly laughed in reply to the young assistant's sally, "that's always the way: we elect you people into your jobs and then you think that we ought to get up your cases for you and hold your witnesses."