As the voice ceased and he sat down, through the warm wave that was coursing over him, Harry felt a chilling realisation of the risk she had run in coming there. An impulsive word, an indiscreet look, and suspicion might have been roused leading to discovery. Sitting before this bar he was only an unknown criminal, a submerged "John Doe" on whom the make-shift expediency of the law spent itself. But the veil once lifted, he would be Harry Sevier, club-man and lawyer whose pleading folk had once flocked to hear, now caught in the vise of the law and proven thief and degenerate. In the emptying room he felt the cool hand of his counsel touch his own, and followed him--with a watchful deputy-sheriff now in hand-reach--to a side door that opened into a chamber at the rear of the court-room. On the threshold the lawyer turned to the sheriff. "There's no hurry, Jerry," he said peevishly. "You wait out here a few minutes. The old man himself is coming. He wants to see him." "Mr. Mason," said Sevier as the other closed the door. "I shall not pretend to thank you for your interest and kindness." The man of briefs shrugged his shoulders. "There's nothing to thank me for," he answered briskly. "Now, if I had cleared you--" Harry nodded. "Naturally, you couldn't do that. You were at a disadvantage." "Thanks to you!" "Yes, I didn't assist you much, I know." "Didn't help me at all," came back in a growl. "No doubt you think I might have," said Harry. "But please don't count me unresponsive. It is only that the logic of the situation appealed to me as unanswerable. But it is a privilege," he added, with the glimmer of a smile, "to have been associated with you." Mason looked at him with a twist to his saturnine lips. "You have been my most remarkable client," he said. "It would have pleased me to have gotten you off. But unluckily for you, I'm no Harry Sevier." It was fortunate that the face of the man beside him was turned away, or he might have seen it go white and startled. "I'm sure I lost no chance I might have had," said the other slowly, "even though you're not Harry Sevier, whoever he is." The other laughed shortly. "He's a lawyer in the next state. I heard him plead once. _He_ didn't bother with evidence! He'd clear Judas Iscariot with that silver tongue of his! Ah, well..." He shrugged his shoulders again, and turned to a closed door. "I'll see if the old man is ready." "One moment." Harry had drawn the ring with the square uncut emerald from his finger, and now he held it out. "I should consider it a favour, if you would take this--it has no particular value, I am sorry to say--as a little remembrance."