* * * * *

Miss Beekman was just stepping off the elevator on the first floor of the Tombs the next afternoon on one of her weekly visits when she came face to face with Mr. Tutt.

She greeted him cordially, for she had taken rather a fancy to the shabby old man, drawn to him, in spite of her natural aversion to all members of the criminal bar, by the gentle refinement of his weather-beaten face.  “I hope you have had a successful day.”

The lawyer shook his head in a pseudo-melancholy manner.

“Unfortunately, I have not,” he answered whimsically.  “My only client refuses to speak to me!  Perhaps you could get something out of him for me.”

“Oh, they all talk to me readily enough!” she replied.  “I fancy they know I’m harmless.  What is his name?”

“Shane O’Connell.”

“What is his offense?”

“He is charged with murder.”

“Oh!”

Miss Althea recoiled.  Her charitable impulses did not extend to defendants charged with homicide.  There was too much notoriety connected with them, for one thing; there was nothing she hated so much as notoriety.

“Seriously,” he went on with earnestness, “I wish you’d have a word with him.  It’s pretty hard to have to defend a man and not to know a thing about his side of the case.  It’s almost your duty, don’t you think?”

Miss Althea hesitated, and was lost.

“Very well,” she answered reluctantly, “I’ll see what I can do.  Perhaps he needs some medicine or letter paper or something.  I’ll get an order from the warden and go right back and see him.”

Twenty minutes later Shane O’Connell faced Miss Beekman sullenly across the deal table of the counsel room.  A ray of late sunshine fell through the high grating of the heavily barred window upon a face quite different from those which Miss Althea was accustomed to encounter in these surroundings, for it showed no touch of depravity or evil habits, and confinement had not yet deprived its cheeks of their rugged mantle of crimson or its eyes of their bold gleam.

He was little more than a boy, this murderer, as handsome a lad as ever swaggered out of County Kerry.

“An’ what may it be that leads you to send for such as me, Miss Beekman!” he demanded, glowering at her.

She felt suddenly unnerved, startled and rather shocked at his use of her name.  Where could he have discovered it?  From the keeper, probably, she decided.  All her usual composure, her quiet self-possession, her aloof and slightly condescending sweetness—­had deserted her.

“I thought,” she stammered—­“I might—­possibly—­be of help to you.”

“’Tis too late to make up for the harm ye’ve done!” His coal-black eyes reached into her shrinking body as if to tear out her heart.

“I!” she gasped.  “I—­do harm!  What do you mean?”

“Did not my sister Katie work for yez?” he asked, and his words leaped and curled about her like hissing flames.  “Did you see after her or watch her comings and goings, as she saw after you—­she a mere lass of sixteen?  Arrah!  No!”