When Mahala heard the verdict, she quietly slid down in her seat and was taken home unconscious by her lawyer and Jason. When reason returned, many days later, she had to be told that the shock of the trial had driven her mother, in agony and doubt, to her long rest. There awaited Mahala this alleviation: Her case had been dismissed by the sympathetic judge. It was his feeling that the evidence was not sufficient to merit punishment on Mahala’s part. He told the lawyer for the prosecution that he must produce something more tangible than the mere fact that Mahala had been in the house at the time the purse was taken. This knowledge came too late to be of material help to Mahala. When Jemima tried to tell her, she discovered from her bright eyes, her burning cheeks, and a quivering of her lips that she had developed a fever, and for weeks she lay scorching and babbling while Jemima and Doctor Grayson, with Jason in the background, worked over her. In leaving the courtroom, Jason made an attempt to attack Martin Moreland. The banker was half expecting that something of the kind might happen. He had so surrounded himself with people craving his favour that the boy was not able even to reach him. Then Jason felt the hand of Albert Rich on his arm and he heard his voice saying: “Don’t be a fool, Jason. You can’t get at him that way. You can’t help her that way. We must make a clean job of this even if it’s a long one. We’ve got to trace this thing out and find exactly how it happened. Every one knows there’s been some underhand work somewhere.” When Jason became more controlled, he said to Albert Rich: “Isn’t it like Junior Moreland to make this horrible trouble and then disappear and leave his father to get through with the dirty work?” “Yes,” said Albert Rich, “it’s exactly like Junior to do that very thing.” “The day is coming,” said Jason, “and it’s coming very speedily, when I shall be forced to kill both of those slippery snakes.” “Hush!” cautioned Albert Rich, “I tell you that when you say such things you make a fool of yourself. You must not let people hear you. If they did, and anything happened to either one of them, those who heard would remember and your day of trouble would come. In that case, you would cease to be of any help to Mahala.”