He knew why she was there, and his first impulse was to go to her and stand by her and make her cause his own. Then, thinking that perhaps he would go in later, and that she would produce a better effect at first without him, he let her go alone, and felt himself growing cold and dizzy, when the door opened and the light streamed for a moment out into the hall, showing him several men inside, with Louie in their midst; then the door was closed, and he was in darkness again. CHAPTER XV THE SESSION Judge White had been consulted with regard to the meeting and asked to attend it, but had declined, inasmuch as Mr. Grey only owed him for a quarter’s rent. But he made no effort to restrain the people. “The dog deserves it, for, of course, he’s been dishonest,” he said. “I have been in the business long enough to know how it can be done, and I always mistrusted he was up to it.” This did not help matters, and, stormy as was the night, a dozen men or more were in the hall by half-past eight, some of them hardly knowing why they were there, or what they were going to do. Godfrey Sheldon knew. He had come early, and meant to have Tom Grey punished; and when the meeting was called to order he made an opening speech, in which he went over the ground, dwelling upon Mr. Grey’s extravagance and the money he had spent, and which he could not have come honestly by. “No, sir,” he said: “He has used our money unlawfully for his own purposes, and it’s all gone—every sumarkee of it gambled away and used for his fine house, and horses, and diamonds, and the Lord knows what. At the very best we shan’t get more than ten cents on a dollar, and what is that? Where have my two thousand dollars gone to? I ask you, and echo answers, Where?” He was getting quite eloquent, and gesticulating wildly, calling Mr. Grey an embezzler, a gambler, a cheat and a villain, who should be made to feel the weight of the law. As he said this he brought his fist down upon a shaky little table with such force that it fell with a crash to the floor. Two or three sprang forward to pick it up, and in their excitement they did not hear the door open or see the drooping figure which came in time to hear “feel the weight of the law,” and see the blow which emphasized it. When they did see her, every man rose to his feet and stared at her as she advanced into their midst and stood with the water falling from her cloak and hood, her face very pale and her eyes unnaturally bright. Had a ghost appeared to them they could scarcely have been more startled, and they began to be sorry for what Sheldon had said, and to hope she had not heard it. “Miss Grey,” one of them began, going toward her and offering her a chair, “we did not expect you here. What can we do for you?”