The revelation caused him to forget all about his dinner engagement. Also it caused him to pass an absolutely sleepless night. When he closed his eyes she still looked into them--always the same clear, understanding, undoubting gaze that he had come to know so well. When he lay with them wide open, staring into the darkness, the vision took more definite shape, so he closed them tightly again. Turple noticed his haggardness the next morning and was solicitous. Now, Turple, at his best, was not entitled to a stare of any description. But Sampson's rapt gaze was so prolonged and so singularly detached from the object upon which it rested--Turple's countenance--that the poor fellow was alarmed. He had never seen his master look just like that before. Later on, Sampson told him to go to the devil. Turple was relieved. The accountants, the detectives and two bookkeepers who formerly had worked under Mr. Hildebrand testified and then the State rested. Through it all the prisoner sat unmoved. Sampson wondered what was going on in the mind of that gaunt, fine-faced old man. What would be his answer to the damning evidence that stood arrayed against him? What _could_ be his defence! He was sorry for him. He would have given a great deal to be able to rise now from his seat in the jury box and announce candidly that he did not feel that he could bring in a verdict against the old man, reminding the Court and the district attorney that he had said in the beginning that he could not answer for his sympathies. During the noon recess he took account of his fellow jurors. They were a glum, serious looking set of men. He knew where their sympathies lay and, like himself, they were depressed. The justice--even he--had lost much of the geniality that at the outset had warmed the atmosphere. He no longer smiled; no more did he exploit his wit, and as for his brisk moustache, it drooped. To the amazement of every one, the defendant's counsel announced that they had but one witness: the prisoner himself. And every one then knew that no matter what the prisoner said in his own defence, his testimony would be unsupported; it would have to stand alone against odds that were overwhelming. Slowly but surely it became evident to these more or less discerning men that James Hildebrand's plea would be for sympathy and not for vindication. By his own story of the dealings with Stevens and Drew and the others he hoped to reach their hearts and through their hearts a certain sense of justice that moves in all men's minds.