"Hush, Marsh!" she implored, in sudden terror of him. He gave her a sullen glare. "Oh, very well, bring the whole damn thing rattling down about our ears!" he cried. "Marsh,--what do you mean? Do you know that John North is innocent?" She spoke with terrifying deliberation. For a moment they stood staring into each other's eyes. The delicate pallor deepened on her face, and she sank half fainting into a chair, but her accusing gaze was still fixed on Langham. He strode to her side, and his hand gripped hers with a cruel force. "Let him prove that he is innocent if he can, but without help from you! You keep still no matter what happens, do you hear? Or God knows where this thing will end--or how!" "Marsh, what am I to think!" "You can think what you like so long as you keep still--" There was a hesitating step in the hall, the door was pushed open, and Judge Langham paused on the threshold. "May I come in?" he said. Neither spoke, and his uneasy glance shifted back and forth from husband to wife. In that wordless instant their common knowledge manifested itself to each one of the three. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO GOOD MEN AND TRUE The North trial was Mount Hope's one vital sensation. Day after day the courtroom was filled with eager perspiring humanity, while in their homes, on the streets, and in the stores men talked of little else. As for North himself, he was conscious of a curious sense of long acquaintance with the courtroom; its staring white walls and crowded benches seemed his accustomed surroundings, and here, with a feeling that was something between fear and weariness, he followed each stage of the elaborate game Judge Belknap, for the defense, and Moxlow, for the prosecution, were playing, the game that had his life for its stake. When court adjourned, always in the twilight of those mid-winter afternoons, there were his brief comforting interviews with Elizabeth; and then the long solitary evenings in his cell; and the longer nights, restless and disturbed. The strain told fearfully on his vigor of body and mind, his face under imprisonment's pallid mask, became gaunt and heavily lined, while his eyes sunk deep in their sockets. At first he had not believed that an innocent man could be punished for a crime of which he had no knowledge; he was not so sure of this now, for the days slipped past and the prosecution remained firmly intrenched behind certain facts which were in their way, conclusive. He told himself with grim humor that the single weak strand in the rope Moxlow was seeking to fit about his neck was this, that after all was said and proved, the fact remained, he had not killed Archibald McBride!