"Perhaps," thought Marriott as each one rose, "perhaps even now, one will relent, one will change--one--" "It is," each man answered. Then Glassford was speaking again--the everlasting formalities, mocking the very sense of things, thanking the jury, congratulating them, discharging them. And Archie Koerner sat there, never moving, looking through the eastern window--but now at the dawn no more, for the window was black to his eyes and the light had gone out of the world. XXI Archie sat by the trial table and looked out the window toward the east. The window from being black became gray again--gray clouds, a scumbled atmosphere of gray. When the jury came out of the box, after it was all over, a young clerk in the court-house rushed up to Menard and wrung his hand in enthusiastic, hysterical congratulation, as if Menard in the face of heavy opposition had done some brave and noble deed. And Archie wondered what he had ever done to this young clerk that he should so have it in for him. Then Marriott was at his side again, but he said nothing; he only took his hand. "Well," thought Archie, "there is one man left in the world who hasn’t got it in for me." And yet there actually seemed to be Danner. For Danner bent over and whispered: "Whenever you’re ready, Dutch, we’ll go back. Of course--no particular hurry, but when you’re ready." Archie wondered what Danner was up to now; usually he ordered them about like brutes, with curses. "You’ll be wanting a bite of breakfast," Danner was saying. Breakfast! The word was strange. Were people still eating breakfast in this world, just as if nothing had happened, just as if things were as they used to be--before--before--what? Before he shot Kouka? No, there was nothing unusual about that; he didn’t care anything about Kouka. Before the penitentiary and the bull rings? Before the first time in the workhouse, when that break, that lapse, came into his life? But breakfast--they would be carrying the little pans about in the jail just now, and that brought the odor of coffee to his memory. Coffee would not be a bad thing. "Any time," he said to Danner. Then they got up and walked away, through the gray morning. In the jail, Danner instantly unlocked the handcuffs, and as he jostled Archie a little in opening the door, he said: "Oh, excuse me, Dutch." What had got into Danner, anyway? Inside he wondered more. Danner said: "You needn’t lock this morning; you can stay in the corridor, and I’ll have your breakfast sent in to you in a moment." Then Danner put up his big hand and whispered in Archie’s ear: "I’ll see the cook and get her to sneak in a little cream and sugar for your coffee."