“What has become of the prisoner?” demanded His Honor.

“I do not know,” replied the lawyer calmly.  “The window was open and I suspect that he used it as a means of exit.”

“Are you not aware that you are a party to an escape—­a crime?” hotly challenged the judge.

“I most respectfully deny the charge,” returned Mr. Tutt.

“I told you to take the prisoner into that room and give him the best advice you could.”

“I did!” interjected the lawyer.

“Ah!” exclaimed the judge.  “You admit it!  What advice did you give him?”

“The law does not permit me to state that,” answered Mr. Tutt in his most dignified tones.  “That is a privileged communication from the inviolate obligation to preserve which only my client can release me—­I cannot betray a sacred trust.  Yet I might quote Cervantes and remind Your Honor that ’Fortune leaves always some door open to come at a remedy!’”

Now as he gazed at the tear-stained cheeks of the girl-wife whose husband had committed murder in defense of her self-respect, he vowed that so far as he was able he would fight to save him.  The more desperate the case the more desperate her need of him—­the greater the duty and the greater his honor if successful.

“Believe that I am your friend, my dear!” he assured her.  “You and I must work together to set Angelo free.”

“It’s no use,” she returned less defiantly.  “He done it.  He won’t deny it.”

“But he is entitled to his defense,” urged Mr. Tutt quietly.

“He won’t make no defense.”

“We must make one for him.”

“There ain’t none.  He just went and killed him.”

Mr. Tutt shrugged his shoulders.

“There is always a defense,” he answered with conviction.  “Anyhow we can’t let him be convicted without making an effort.  Will they be able to prove where he got the pistol?”

“He didn’t get the pistol,” retorted the girl with a glint in her black eyes.  “I got it.  I’d ha’ shot him myself if he hadn’t.  I said I was goin’ to, but he wouldn’t let me.”

“Dear, dear!” sighed Mr. Tutt.  “What a case!  Both of you trying to see which could get hanged first!”

* * * * *

The inevitable day of Angelo’s trial came.  Upon the bench the Honorable Mr. Justice Babson glowered down upon the cowering defendant flanked by his distinguished counsel, Tutt & Tutt, and upon the two hundred good and true talesmen who, “all other business laid aside,” had been dragged from the comfort of their homes and the important affairs of their various livelihoods to pass upon the merits of the issue duly joined between The People of the State of New York and Angelo Serafino, charged with murder.