“No,” said Marshall.

“May I ask if you are offended because of his choice of counsel?”

“That has nothing to do with it!” said the younger man, moving impatiently in his chair.

“I do not like your attitude in this matter, Marshall; I like it as little as I understand it.  But I have given my warning.  Keep clear of that fellow Gilmore, do not involve yourself in his fortunes, or the result may prove disastrous to you!”

“I want him let alone!” said Marshall doggedly, speaking with desperate resolution.

“Why?” asked the judge.

“Because it is better for all concerned; you—­you don’t know what you’re meddling with—­”

He quitted his chair and fell to pacing to and fro.  His father’s glance, uncertain and uneasy, followed him as he crossed and recrossed the room.

“I find I can not agree with you, Marshall!” said the judge at length.  “I do not like hints, and unless you can deal with me with greater frankness than you have yet done, there is not much use in prolonging this discussion.”

“As you like, then,” replied Marshall, wheeling on him with sudden recklessness.  “I want to tell you just this—­you’ll not hurt Gilmore, but—­”

Words failed him, and his voice died away on his white and twitching lips into an inarticulate murmur.

He struggled vainly to recover the mastery of himself, but his fear, now the growth of his many days and nights of torture, would not let him finish what he had started to say.

“Very good, I don’t want to hurt anybody, but I do want to find that man, whoever he is, that you and Gilmore are shielding; the man Joe Montgomery saw cross those sheds the night of the murder; I am going to bend my every energy to learning who that man is, and when I have discovered his identity—­”

“You’ll want to see him in North’s place, will you?” asked Marshall.  The words came from him in a hoarse whisper and his arm was extended threateningly toward his father.  “You’re sure about that?  You can’t conceive of the possibility that you’d be glad not to know?  You want to have John North out of his cell and this other man there in his place; you want to face him day after day in the court room—­you’re sure?” His shaking arm continued to menace the judge.  “Well, you don’t need to find Montgomery, and you don’t need to hound Gilmore; I can tell you more than they can—­”

His bloodshot eyes, fixed and staring, seemed starting from their sockets.

“The facts you want to know are hidden here!” He struck his hand savagely against his breast and lurched half-way across the room, then he swung about and once more faced the judge.  “Why haven’t you had the wisdom to keep out of this,—­or have you expected to find some one it would be easier to pronounce sentence on than North?  Did you think it would be Gilmore?”

He scowled down on his father.  It was appalling and unnatural, after all his frightful suffering, his fear, and his remorse which never left him, that his safety should be jeopardized by his own father!  He had only asked that the law be left to deal with John North, who, he believed, had so wronged him that no death he could die would atone for the injury he had done.