Terry's head lifted, looking at him curiously. The young fellow remembered revelations, tears, of one night in particular when Watts had stayed with him until dawn came and his hysteria was over. The boy wondered what his friend would reveal of this. But the great lawyer went calmly on with unemotional emphasis to state that he had found the criminal's mind vague, perhaps not properly educated, unformed and in ignorance of the many physical facts that at his age induce crime. "And we know," remarked the speaker calmly, "that there is an age in young manhood when a youth is hardly responsible. The law, I feel, should invariably in its adjustments reckon with the physiological fact of that age. He had," he said, "talked with the prisoner as he would have liked to be given the wisdom at crises to talk to a son of his own, and as"--here the man looked about the court-room into the rows of dull and complacent faces--"it seems to me it is absolutely incumbent on all of us to talk to sons and daughters of our own frankly, giving them truth and the clear analysis of all that makes in our bodies and environment and heritage for crime; for sins against ourselves and the body politic." The lawyer then reviewed some mitigating circumstances, touched lightly on some of the more interesting technical aspects of the case and addressed the jury on behalf of the commutation of the sentence. Finally, with curious simple tenderness, a thing that the court-room did not understand, at which Judge Bogart looked displeased and drummed impatiently with his fingers, at which the country lawyers openly squirmed and yawned, but at which Dora sat tense and straight, and Terry's young head went down into his arms, he finished. "If, Gentlemen of the Jury, you should still feel that you must bring in the verdict of intentional and deliberate guilt, then I appeal, your Honor, for the commutation of sentence. I appeal in the name of Humanity, of struggling, sinning, ignorant Humanity, and by that new spirit which makes us disbelieve nowadays in the 'pound of flesh.' I appeal, your Honor, by my own youth's ignorance, its mistakes and struggles and by the ignorances and mistakes and struggles of those I have tried to help; by yours, Gentlemen of the Jury, who take your solemn part in the decision after the trial. I appeal to Terence O'Brien, the accused, to take your decision, whatever it may be, and apply it as a test of his own character and what he may still make of that character; and I appeal to his sister, sitting there, to make her grief and sorrow noble, a test by which she may grow stronger and braver.