"I see you are still interested in Skinner?" "Yes!" "Have you succeeded in getting him a new trial?" "Not yet, but at any hour I expect to hear that the governor will give me an opportunity to defend him. I fully believe that the man is innocent, that he ought to have another chance for his life. As I said in the court-room the squatter trials are but farces. I don't approve of them." "You're but a stranger in our town," interposed the Dominie. "When you've been here as long as I have, Professor Young, you will see that the strictest measures are necessary with these people. The rope is none too good for that man, Skinner." "God forbid," ejaculated Young, "that I should live ever to wish away a man's life on any--personal motive." Tessibel's sweet upturned face, shrouded in red-brown hair rose before him, but it did not obscure the dark flush that swept over the handsome face of the minister. The professor had intimated that he thought personal motives were being used to persecute the squatter. This tried the patience of Elias Graves as he sat gathering an argument to refute the accusation. He had even persuaded himself that it was for the good of the town to remove one after another of the loathsome fishermen either by the rope or imprisonment. Without their men the squatter women also would disappear from the shores. He rose with a sense of coming evil stealing over him for the man seated opposite was a tower of strength and his own position in the town had been weakened in the late church conflict. The reins of affairs were being swept from his hands. He could not speak out more emphatically than he had against Skinner. On all sides, friends were rising mushroom-like to rescue the fisherman from the hangman's noose. If he himself could gain a few strong friends he would be able to sweep the squatter from the face of the earth. As he walked toward the Rectory after leaving Professor Young he set his teeth hard, these thoughts rushing through his mind, and inflaming his desire to rule in Ithaca as he always had. Even his anxiety about Frederick was obscured by the multitudinous plans that one after another were born in his brain. He closed the library door of the Rectory with an annoyed air and dropped into an arm-chair to think. * * * * *