THE TRIAL (continued)

It had indeed been a curious study to the many watchers, the demeanor of Longtinsky under the ordeal of the day, and the astounding revelations thus taken from the mouth of a child. Many smiled at his complete blindness, some doubted it, others simply watched the man’s changing expression. There were times when Longtinsky gazed at the boy—who for his part seldom looked at him—with an absolute stupor of amazement; then he became scornful, and attempted cheap tricks of inattention and weariness, and less frequently he leaned forward fixing his blue eyes on the child, his face red with a tempest of rage, as if to disconcert and intimidate the inflexible inexorable little witness. Comments were numerous, and the gossiping groups of men, the lowering glances of many in the streets as they heard of Longtinsky’s arrest, the prodigious headlines of the evening papers, the covert allusions to it in the plays at the theatres and the manifest disturbance on the East Side where the police reported many brawls and muttered threats, betokened the excited and ominous train of interest.

It had been a matter of surprise to Helen Lorimer that her uncle seemed to avoid the trial, and made few references to it at their meetings. But on the day after Angelo Shimura had begun his testimony his interest was aroused, and something, peculiarly, almost anxious in his manner, amused Miss Lorimer and Amato as well. He wished to know how the evidence went and while he interrupted his informants with impatient comments upon the entire uselessness of the trial, he took some pains to find out exactly the drift of Mr. Moser’s examination of Angelo and what other witnesses might be called on the side of the defense.

The day succeeding the first day of Angelo’s testimony promised important developments. The boy had made an extraordinary witness, the tenacity of his memory astonished the oldest court attendants, and his impassive way, lightened up now and then with some burst of excitement, kept his hearers in a pleasant state of expectation that conduced to his popularity. His picture appeared in the papers and he was the talk of the moment. Already it was half discerned that Longtinsky and Polinck had endeavored to cover their tracks by complete secrecy and that the men apparently involved with them were ignorant accomplices. The doors of the court room were early besieged, and as different actors in the trial passed in, a rush forward of the multitude occurred, animated by a wild curiosity to see the boy Angelo, for his name passed from mouth to mouth, and, as crowds will, every arrival was hailed as the object of their interest. At last he did come with Mr. Moser, and his ineffective childish appearance, his slight malformation, and his oblique eyes proved disappointing.

“Looks like a simpleton,” was the remark of a big man who almost seized the boy, as Mr. Moser pushed him aside and shoved Angelo ahead of him.

“Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings God has ordained wisdom” was the quick and loud retort of Mr. Moser, whose sally was cheered.

Within the court room every one seemed in nervous suspense. Animation prevailed among the attendants, and the streaming and crushing crowds were nervously excited. This tension became contagious. It was felt as an atmospheric disorder, and Helen Lorimer and Amato no less than the most sensational news monger acknowledged its disconcerting influence. The judge was early on the bench, the jurors were unusually prompt, the lawyers in their place, and the prisoners as they marched in, stolidly looking neither to the right nor to the left, when seated, bore an expression of expectation, indeed among most of them it revealed itself in smiles of confidence. They had not failed to note the overwhelming importance of the boy, Angelo’s testimony, and with them too the increasing fear was the boy’s power to withstand the cross-examination, and to vindicate his own credibility.

Slowly the great doors were shoved together and the clamorous and pressing throng without were shut off. The clerk stood up and repeated his formula, the judge rapped impatiently and summoned Mr. Moser to renew his case. One figure was not there; Longtinsky was in prison, and Poniatowsky, again among the crowd felt that the moment of action was upon him, and his conspirators.

“Angelo Shimura take the stand,” called out the clerk, who again swore the strange waif, thus suddenly thrown upward to confound the state and the law.

The examination had reached the stage where the witness was expected to detail the incidents of the night when the fire and explosions occurred. Everything had been carefully leading up to that; the repeated conferences between Longtinsky and the bomb maker and Polinck, and the final assignment of a date for the destruction of the Settlement House, and the breaking out of the Revolution.

Pitilessly Mr. Moser gathered the evidence together from the lips of the extraordinary boy as to the treasonable plots of Longtinsky, and still in it all the persons of the prisoners, excepting Polinck, never appeared. There were other men at the conferences and many others unrevealed somewhere on the outskirts of the grand project, but those men who had actually received their _condemnation to death_ for murder and arson were never named. It stupified the hearers; the amazement grew. And Mr. Moser skillfully accented and accentuated it dwelling again, in his examination, upon the possibility of the boy’s mistake, calling his attention to the prisoners, pointing them out, calling them by name and each time gaining from the alert child a fresh denial of their complicity. Mr. Meldexter and his assistant were visibly non-plussed. Their case seemed to vanish under the breath of this boy into a veriest skein of smoke; their fabric of proof tumbled to pieces before their eyes.

And Mr. Moser standing close to Angelo asked him to tell all he knew about the night of the disaster. There was a breathless silence. Almost a thousand eyes were fixed upon the immobile child who for a moment closed his own as if to recall the vivid scene. Perhaps he purposed too to make his story more telling. He began slowly opening his eyes and staring at Mr. Moser.

“It was a eveening, veery—that Mr. Polinck and Mr. Longtinsky came with the man—who put up the bombs. They came in the long room behind the press. It was dark and they sat at a table with—one light. They spoke low—Oh so low! but I back of a board on the side—and I could hear Mr. Longtinsky say—‘To-night—To-night. Get Alonzo Fabrizio, and Charles Bingo—They will carry these—to the Settlement House. Wrap them up like a long roll—and tell them they are ROLLS of PAPER.’”

People stretched forward their heads to hear the words; one of the lawyers for the state rose from his chair, and watched the boy; the judge turned towards him more directly, and the jurymen leaned forward with pale grave faces.

“Go on,” urged Mr. Moser as Angelo looked at him as if for encouragement, “What next.”

“So Mr. Polinck—he go away and come back with Alonzo Fabrizio and Charles Bingo. Mr. Longtinsky—he say—they take the ROLLS of PAPER to the Settlement House for Mees Lorimer, and they go out with them. Then they come a-back and say—How to get in the House?—and Mr. Longtinsky say it was open—all open—all unlocked and they go out again.

“Then Mr. Polinck veery much astonished; he ask how the House could be open and Mr. Longtinsky speak so veery low and soft that I put my head out of the board and hear heem say—the Janitor leave it open—and then I could not hear what Mr. Longtinsky say—but Mr. Polinck—he laugh, and Mr. Longtinsky laugh, and by an by—they go out, and then I go out, and come behind running along on the other side of the street.” Again a pause. “Well what next? Is that all?” and Mr. Moser addressing the child looked about him, and back of him at the sea of eager faces.

“Then come everything Sir. Mr. Polinck and Mr. Longtinsky—they come to the men—out of the House—”

“What men?” interrupted the lawyer.

“Why Sir, Alonzo Fabrizio and Charles Bingo.”

“The men who had carried the rolls there as you said?” questioned the lawyer, his face turned away from the boy and fixed upon the District Attorney, who sprang to his feet and objected, but was overruled.

“Yes Sir, those men,” answered Angelo.

“Go on.”

“Mr. Longtinsky say to the men—the men who put the ROLLS in the House to go away, and come back with other men and he give them some names, that I could not hear—and then Sir, Mr. Longtinsky and Mr. Polinck go in the HOUSE TOGETHER.”

“Now Angelo where were you?”

“I was behind a pillar at the door of the House and when they go in, I go in too.”

“Then what?”

“Mr. Longtinsky and Mr. Polinck take the ROLLS, and carry them into the cellar, and then Mr. Longtinsky fix-a-a-a-long a-a cord—strin-like—to the ROLLS, and Mr. Polinck, he make a piles of paper and things, and then Mr. Longtinsky say he go away for bizness.”

“Did you stay in the cellar or go away with Mr. Longtinsky?”

“I follow Mr. Longtinsky—always follow heem.”

“Did Mr. Longtinsky or Mr. Polinck see you there?”

“No Sir! it was always dark, and I mek no noise, and keep-a-out of sight. I Sir like a leetle mouse.”

A titter swept over the crowd, as a breeze might ripple the dark face of an engulfing wave—it was the wave of a darkening rage, the fierce threat of revenge and contempt. Poniatowsky—still there—felt it—there would be short shrift for Longtinsky, he knew, unless he and his men struck surely, quickly, relentlessly. Could they do it? The titter vanished with the sound of the judge’s gavel.

“Well what then?” murmured Mr. Moser gazing at the boy with a curious earnestness.

“We stand—Mr. Longtinsky and mee—mee out of sight—some time outside, and then the men come-a-back with other men—”

“What men?” broke in Mr. Moser.

“Why Sir, the men who carry the ROLLS.”

“You mean Alonzo Fabrizio and Charles Bingo?”

“Objected to,” shouted Mr. Meldexter.

“Sustained,” ponderously sighed the judge.

“Angelo,” again said Mr. Moser, “Tell us what men came when you and Mr. Longtinsky stood at the doors of the Settlement House, and had left Mr. Polinck inside.”

“Why Sir, Fabrizio and Bingo came with other men, and they saw Mr. Longtinsky there and he say—to them, to go inside the House and to stay there—that Mr. Polinck wanted them, and to come out when Mr. Polinck say-a so—”

“Among those men were there—”

Mr. Meldexter was on his feet in a second. Mr. Moser recognized the danger. Turning to the little Japanese, he spoke again; “What men did you see among those other men who came with Alonzo Fabrizio and Charles Bingo?” and his side glance at his opponent, after the usual manner of a lawyer’s smiling effrontery, seemed to say “does that suit you?”

“There was a-a-many men and there was,” the boy looked at the prisoners which gesture made the district attorney and his men laugh a little, just a little, enough to show their disgust; “there was a John Dalzell, Pedro Vinta, and Fred Rinker. I see them—all Sir.”

“Now Angelo Shimura, tell all that followed that night.” And Mr. Moser closed his eyes, folded his arms in front of him, and swayed gently as if he expected to enjoy the recitation.

“Mr. Longtinsky hurry home—he almost run—and I follow heem. He get in the door and slam it behind heem and lock it-and-a-a-I could not geet in too. I seet outside and I there a leetle while, and I hear big noise, I run out and many—many men and women run out too, and then another big noise, and we run to the noise, and it came from the Settlement House, and then we run faster and big crowds—all aroun—I push thro, and see flames bursting up—shooting away up Sir, many men scrambling out of the—holes—at the windows below—”

“Stop,” Mr. Moser opened his eyes, and appearing much confused said, “Holes!—Holes! Do you mean the area ways in the basement?”

“Yes Sir—I mean that” no response, and the boy hurried on. “And then came the police and they slam away and push back the crowd, and then another bigger noise—Oh! so big! and it blow out the side of the house, and the people get off—quick—and then come the engines—and then more noise and the fire geet in another house, and then more police and—I run back to Mr. Longtinsky—”

“Did you find Mr. Longtinsky?”

“No Sir—he shet up house—I no get in and so stay all night in the streets, and the next day I see you at the House and you tek me away and I tol you all.”

There were a few more questions, but only one that particularly attracted the attention of the audience, and of the court; it was the last Mr. Moser asked;

“Angelo Shimura, you are a Japanese boy?”

“Yes sir.”

“How did you understand these men—Longtinsky, Polinck and the others; did they speak in English?”

“No Sir, they speak a most in Yeeddish.”

“Do you speak Yiddish?”

“No Sir,” the attorney and his men were on their feet, “but I understan’ it.”

“Let us see,” said Mr. Moser reflectively, “Is the court interpreter here?”

A dull looking short man appeared and said he was the court interpreter and was so identified by the clerk. He was requested to say something in Yiddish in the boy’s hearing and Angelo was told to translate it. The experiment was made and the little Japanese quickly gave the right meaning. After some more illustrations the judge said he thought the fact of the boy’s understanding Yiddish was fully proven. Then Angelo was excused by Mr. Moser, and handed over to the district attorney. There was a stir through the great assemblage and many feared for the little fellow. The apprehension was unnecessary. The boy’s tenacity was like that of a vise. He forgot nothing.

He did not fence with the smart lawyer but he confounded him by his sincerity, and the ordeal served the remarkable purpose of proving the boy’s precocity and self-assurance, so that he could not be regarded as a dressed and drilled instrument of the defence. It was not long before Mr. Meldexter excused him; he was making things worse for the state. There was a certainty in Shimura’s remembrance like the inevitable action of a machine. It was observed by the district attorney, who intended to impeach the boy’s evidence on the ground that he had learned his lesson too well. The plea would hardly do.

There could be no gainsaying that the boy made an almost unimpeachable impression. Many were the glances of satisfaction exchanged between Helen Lorimer and Amato as Angelo showed his nerve and steady frankness.

As Shimura stepped from the bench Mr. Meldexter suddenly, as his face brightened with some unexpected suggestion, asked him to resume the chair for a minute. The boy wonderingly returned, and as if expecting some difficult ordeal prepared for him by the lawyer. Mr. Meldexter was smiling, and this hypocrisy roused the boy’s friends to a greater fear of danger.

“You say Angelo Shimura that the Settlement House was open that night, that the rolls of paper were carried there by Bingo and Fabrizio, and in your direct examination by Mr. Moser you said that Mr. Longtinsky told Mr. Polinck that the House would be open. Did you see the House open when the men carried away the Rolls there?”

“No Sir I deed not. I was at Mr. Longtinsky bit when I come there-a-a-wit Mr. Longtinsky the door was open, and the Mr. Bingo and Mr. Fabrizio come-a-a out.”

“You did not know that the door was not broken open?”

“The door was not broken Sir but—open like-a-a—” the boy raised his eyes and looked around the huge chamber, searching for an illustration, “—like a that door open now Sir,” and he pointed down the corridor before him to the court room doors, one of which then swung inward and admitted—_Theodore Lorimer_! His gesture was followed both by Mr. Meldexter and Mr. Moser. Their glance caught Mr. Lorimer’s attention, and those near at hand afterwards said Theodore Lorimer’s face paled. Both of the lawyers turned again to the witness.

“You said something about hearing Mr. Longtinsky say to Mr. Polinck that the janitor would leave the House open. Did you not?”

“Yes Sir—he say-a-so—he—Mr. Longtinsky.”

“Do you know the janitor of the Settlement House or the man who was the janitor?”

“Yes Sir—veery well. He-a-sit-a-ther now” and the boy standing pointed to a man concealed behind Mr. Meldexter. Mr. Meldexter shuffled impatiently, and then after a moment’s silence told Angelo to leave the bench. The boy took refuge at the side of Mr. Moser who received him with great approval.

“John Bunn to the chair,” called out the clerk after prompting by Mr. Meldexter. The man whom Angelo had pointed out as the janitor of the ill fated Settlement House, rose and took the seat of the witness, and also the oath. He was an ordinary type of serving man, perhaps a German, stolid, unmoved by his surroundings and uncompromisingly serene.

“John Bunn you are, or were, the janitor of the lately destroyed Settlement House were you not?”

“Yees Sir I vas.”

“How was it that the house over which you had charge was left open on the night of its destruction—or Sir—please be careful in answering—” Mr. Moser had risen partly to object, “or was it open that night at all?”

The man folded his arms, leaned back, and stared at the lawyer, as if to assure him that he was ready and able to answer the question, and in no way disturbed at the consequences—and, as he began his answer, the figure of Theodore Lorimer stepped forward in the aisle, and something straining and anxious came into his eyes. Few failed to recognize that the question might prove critical, and Mr. Moser stood at his chair as if to intercept some unexpected blow.

“It vas offen.”

“Were you there on the night of the burning?”

“I vas not.”

“How Sir, if the Settlement House was in your custody was it left open and you not there?”

John Bunn was silent for a moment. He too had caught sight of Mr. Lorimer standing now much farther down the aisle, so far indeed that persons afterwards averred he raised his hand slightly, and as if to catch the attention of the witness, and opened and closed it slowly. The witness hesitated; he began to speak, and looking from the lawyers to Mr. Lorimer and back again at the lawyers seemed in deep perplexity. At that instant a court attendant touched Mr. Lorimer on the shoulder motioning him to a seat. But that gentleman passed again to the rear of the court room, and, with his withdrawal John Bunn recovered his voice.

“Eet vas dees vay. I leef de House offen because I vas a—_told to leef it offen_.”

“Who told you to leave it open?” came the remorseless question. Amato and Miss Lorimer leaned forward; here was the suspected play of the element in her own ranks that had helped—or wished to help, for its own purposes—the revolutionary agitators. It had never been understood why the House was unprotected the night of its assault. The janitor—this same John Bunn—had refused to explain his absence, and he had been summarily discharged—in fact he had soon absented himself from the city; he could not be found, and his appearance here was a surprise to Miss Lorimer, to Mr. Moser. To the question of Mr. Meldexter the man returned a fixed stare almost as if he did not understand him. Mr. Meldexter repeated the question, and added “Miss Lorimer gave you no such order?” Again no answer, only the stare and a stubborn shrugging of the shoulders. The District Attorney approached the witness, and raised his finger threateningly; “Do you refuse to answer this question?”

The man turned to the judge who had wheeled round in his chair to notice him, and said “Must I answer?” The judge nodded. The man recovered his equanimity; he had made up his mind. “No Mees Lorimer gif me no such ordee. Mr. Theodore—he gif it to me—”

Amato turned to look at his companion. She was pale, so very pale that the young man thought he should ask her to leave the room. But she refused to go; her clenched hands were pressed to her bosom, her wan look told her distress, and her lips compressed, as if almost to stifle a cry of misery, were also pale. Quickly she released one hand and laid it upon Amato’s, and half moaned; “Wait.”

The answer of John Bunn was a bomb that shattered some theories and raised many questions. The answer incidentally was accompanied by the scarcely apparent opening and closure of the court room door and the disappearance of Mr. Lorimer himself. Perhaps but one pair of eyes noticed his inaudible exit, those eyes were in the head of John Bunn. Mr. Moser had his turn of astonishment, and Mr. Meldexter observed his confusion with satisfaction. It half looked if this evidence was to be trusted that Mr. Theodore Lorimer—a leader in the rich and aristocratic circles of the city, a notable in _Carrara_—was himself an accomplice, and the thought imparted to Mr. Moser a momentary shock. What revelations might be expected from Longtinsky, where was the trail leading?

“Mr. Bunn” it was the sharp voice of the district attorney, “did you receive an order from Mr. Lorimer by word of mouth or in writing?”

“Mister Lorimer come to mee and say so.”

“Did Mr. Lorimer offer you any inducements for this betrayal of your trust?”

“Vat you meen? Money?”

Mr. Moser had recovered his senses, he was on his feet shouting “Objected to, immaterial, incompetent, and irrelevant.”

“Sustained,” hesitated the judge, adding, “at least at present.”

Again Mr. Meldexter; “Did you see the prisoners at the bar enter the Settlement House on the night when it was burned down?”

“No Sir I deed not. I vas not there,” almost shouted the witness.

“Did you know why the House was to be left open; did Mr. Lorimer say why you should leave it unprotected?”

An objection was made and sustained; Mr. Lorimer at present was not on trial. Mr. Meldexter handed the witness over to Mr. Moser who, after a moment’s inspection of the man, declined to cross-examine. The evidence had no bearing on the guilt or innocence of the men at the bar. But to Mr. Meldexter it served the vital purpose of _revenge_; if Miss Lorimer, through her attorney secured the release of the men previously condemned, he—Mr. Meldexter—had fastened a dangerous suspicion upon her family, as collusive in the desperate act for which they were tried. Would Miss Lorimer care to see the matter through to its bitterest results? Already a court summons had been made out for the appearance of Mr. Theodore Lorimer as witness; _Mr. Meldexter wanted him_.

More policemen were called and a renewed effort made to show that the prisoners were caught red-handed—as it were—coming out of the burning House, but this evidence was somewhat shaken by Mr. Moser’s cross-examination, whereby he showed a great difference in the opinions of the witnesses as to where exactly they had seen the men. It gave the impression of great confusion at the time, and made it clear that of the many men who had been seen running from the House many might have been in the place for purposes of rescue and assistance. The boy Shimura had made it pretty plain that Longtinsky and Polinck were the perpetrators of the deed and the others the merest stool pigeons.

Finally came the time for the summing up, and the day closed with the promise of both sides that they would complete their pleas the next day in time for the judge to make his charge and for the surrender of the case to the jury. Slowly with much whispering and open comment, the great throng dispersed. Five left the court room with strange conflicting thoughts. They were Helen Lorimer, Mr. Moser, Mr. Briggs, Tom Ratler, and Poniatowsky. Helen Lorimer thought she saw the treacherous hand of her uncle in another matter perhaps dearer to her than the safety of the Settlement House; Mr. Briggs was dumbfounded with a new sensation of danger to the commonwealth; Tom was thinking of making away with Jessie now that her father was so desperately involved in the thickening perils; and Poniatowsky saw the moment near at hand when his ripened plans must be put in motion. Mr. Moser felt the pressure of an ominous dread.

Surely of these five Miss Lorimer was to be pitied. The stunning disclosure—although she could scarcely believe it—had wounded her beyond all estimate. The revolting meanness of it, the shameless perfidy, the cruel forgetfulness and wickedness of it, the harsh sense of betrayal and desertion—Oh! how it made her value the earnest love of her friend; she turned to him now as a protector, as something golden and true, loyal and unswerving—these things stung and wearied her.

She was silent almost all through their return to Carrara, and when her home was reached she asked if her uncle was there. The servant told her Mr. Lorimer had left in the morning and had returned an hour before. Amato waited at her side and she turned and said, “You will take dinner with us?” and then, as if in an impulse of affection, “Please do.” Amato felt her grief. His own heart bled for her, and his indignation rose steadily as he contemplated the heartlessness that had wounded her—and yet it seemed all so incredible—perhaps a mistake. He told her so. She thanked him and together they went up the marble stairway, leading to the stately dining-room, and there—coming towards them with a hand valise in his hand, a summer overcoat thrown over his arm was—_Theodore Lorimer_.

For one instant Helen Lorimer surveyed him, not with entreaty on her lips, not with expostulation, not with protesting confidence. She KNEW, that moment when their eyes encountered, and he shrank like a cowering animal from her searching inquiry, that he was GUILTY, that he knew moreover that he had been revealed, that his name had been published before the world as a culprit and a traitor—the Brother of her Father. SHE KNEW IT. Nay; she knew more; he contemplated flight; he was about to become a fugitive. It was best so. That house, that city, would be too small now for him and her. Let him be forgotten. Oh!—but her divination ran further, deeper—it was he that separated from her the man she had loved; his pride, his arrogance, his love of caste, and now how abject he seemed! It was amazing how much she understood that moment, as if the fire of some supernatural revelation had flashed upon him, and laid him bare to her. There are such psychologic moments. Every one has experienced them.

Amato watched her. It was wonderful to see the muteness of her pain. No word, only that fixed gaze, with a rising color in her cheeks. And Mr. Lorimer said nothing. He fled before that stern silent indignation. He was eager to get away, eager to escape a public ordeal, that would have strangely humiliated him before his own niece, before the man whom he had expelled from that house, because he felt his own blood was—_a better sort!_

And yet there might have been explanations. Theodore Lorimer had acted according to a principle. He was not a bad man in the moral sense. His business instincts and his career in business had been unimpeachable. His kindness to his sister and niece had been perfect. He was the victim of a conservative and class pride. He had thought to destroy the vicious activity of the radicals, to save his family from any further pernicious—as he deemed it—sympathy with the Abyss, to kill for once and all his niece’s infatuation to regenerate the slums. It was a foolish deed; but not incomprehensible. He had played a dangerous game and lost.

The destruction of the Settlement House had not disturbed Helen Lorimer’s determination to keep on at her work, and the men—to be dealt with summarily, innocent or guilty, as Lorimer thought, for an example—_were to escape_. The whole fabric of his weak, unstable, and cruel plan had failed. He had not been alone; he had confederates, abettors, men of the same stamp of feeling; men with the same egoistic idea. One shred of honor remained to him. He would not expose them. He would take the burden of his dishonor and bare the execrable shame of it, _alone_.

The man hurried down the broad stairway followed by Helen who stepped rapidly forward to the top of the broad descent. At the bottom he turned and looked back at her—and yet no word between them. His face was convulsed with misery. For one moment a tide of compassion swept over the woman gazing there at him, and seeing through him the ulterior ruin of a life. Amato crept forward too, catching the epic intensity of this wordless interview.

The next instant he was gone; an automobile already waited at the foot of the terraces of steps, and in another minute the hoarse creak of the chauffeur’s horn sounded drearily and—as it seemed to Helen—like a human cry distorted into an unintelligible and animal wail. The next she stood at Amato’s side and he lifted her face and saw that it had blanched to the pallor of death. She leaned heavily upon him; she would have fallen; he caught her and led her to a sofa. She smiled at his solicitude, but her great eyes looked at him despairingly—their bitterness of woe made his heart bleed. He felt so helpless! But the strong heart conquered, the buoyant spirit rose from its humiliation, the challenging splendor of her beauty returned, and slowly—slowly—the intrepid resolve to bear all things well, to suffer without murmur, and still to pursue her own noble purposes unchanged, _also_ returned.

She rose and held Amato’s hands a moment in her own; he felt their pressure. A few escaped tresses of hair hung upon her forehead, and the breath from her parted lips came quickly. Her voice was low, and as she spoke she looked upward, so that the white column of the neck revealed its softly blue venations, and the eyelids drooped over beseeching eyes;

“Amato it was Christ’s words ‘_In your patience possess ye your Souls_.’” She wavered an instant, then she dropped his hands, and now with bowed head, the spread white fingers of her hands pressed upon her breast she left him stunned and sorrowing. He followed her a few steps, but she swept from him noiselessly and quickly. He stood irresolute a few moments, turned, descended the stairway, and left the house.

Later he returned. Helen came to the dinner, and though she was more silent she evinced her usual graciousness; her paleness faintly touched with color added to her strange beauty. She talked with less animation: she seemed to invite his confidences, and tempted him to tell them of his sojourn in Europe.

Julieta remarking the absence of her uncle asked; “Where is Theodore?”

The deep eyes gazed a little wearily, Amato thought, at his vacant place and the answer, uttered without a tremor, came from her lips; “Mother, Uncle has left the City.”