“What’s the matter?  Are you sick?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

“Come in to the fire; it’s a bit chilly these nights.”

Sandy dropped listlessly into a chair, with his back to the light.

“There are several things I want to talk over,” continued the judge.  “One is about Ricks Wilson.  He has behaved very badly ever since that affair in August.  Everybody who goes near the jail comes away with reports of his threats against me.  He seems to think I am holding his trial over until January, when the fact is I have been trying to get him released on your account.  It is of no use, though; he will have to wait his turn.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Sandy, without looking up.

“Then there’s Carter Nelson encouraging him in his feeling against me.  It seems that Nelson wants the fellow to drive for him at the fall trots, and he has given me no end of trouble about getting him off.  What an insolent fellow Nelson is!  He talked very ugly in my office yesterday, and made various threats about making me regret any interference.  I wouldn’t have stood it from any one else; but Carter is hardly responsible.  I have watched him from the time he was born.  He came into the world with a mortal illness, and I doubt if he ever had a well day in his life.  He’s a degenerate, Sandy; he’s bearing the sins of a long line of dissolute ancestors.  We have to be patient with men like that; we have to look on them as we do on the insane.”

He waited for some response, but, getting none, pulled his chair in confidential proximity and laid his hand on Sandy’s knee.  “However, that’s neither here nor there,” he said.  “I have a surprise for you.  I couldn’t let you go to bed without telling you about it.  It’s about your future, Sandy.  I’ve been talking it over with Mr. Moseley, and he is confident—­”

Suddenly Sandy rose and stood by the table.

“Don’t be making any more plans for me,” he said desperately; “I’ve made up me mind to enlist.”

“Enlist!  In the army?”

“Yes; I’ve got to get away.  I must go so far that I can’t come back; and, judge—­I want to go to-morrow!”

“Is it money matters?”

A long silence followed—­of the kind that ripens confidence.  Presently Sandy lifted his haggard eyes:  “It’s nothing I’m ashamed of, judge; ye must take me word for that.  It’s like taking the heart out of me body to go, but I’ve made up me mind.  Nothing on earth can change me purpose; I enlist on the morrow.”

The judge looked at him long and earnestly over his glasses, then he asked in calm, judicial tones:  “Is her answer final?”

Sandy started from his chair.  How finite intelligence could have discovered the innermost secret of his soul seemed little short of miraculous.  But the relief of being able to pour out his feelings mastered all other considerations.

“Oh, sir, there was never a question.  Like the angel she is, she let me be near her so long as I held my peace; but, fool that I am, I break me promise again and again.  I can’t keep silent when I see her.  The truth would burst from me lips if I was dumb.”