“Yes,” she said, with a drawing in of her full lips.

“When I leave you—­if you really mean that—­it will be to leave Mount Hope!” said he appealingly.

The savage vigor that was normally his had deserted him, his very pride was gone; a sudden mistrust of himself was humbling him; he felt wretchedly out of place; he was even dimly conscious of his own baseness while he was for the moment blinded to the cruelty of her conduct.  Under his breath he cursed himself.  By his too great haste, by a too great frankness he had fooled away his chances with her.

“That is more than I dared hope,” Evelyn rejoined composedly.

“If I’ve offended you—­” began Gilmore.

“Your presence offends me,” she interrupted and looked past him to the door.

“You don’t mean what you say—­Evelyn—­” he said earnestly.

“My cook might have been flattered by your proposal; but why you should have thought I would be, is utterly incomprehensible.”

Gilmore’s face became livid on the instant.  A storm of abuse rushed to his lips but he held himself in check.  Then without a word or a glance he passed from the room.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THE HOUSE OF CARDS

The long day had been devoted to the choosing of the twelve men who should say whether John North was innocent or guilty, but at last court adjourned and Marshall Langham, pushing through the crowd that was emptying itself into the street, turned away in the direction of his home.

For no single instant during the day had he been able to take his eyes from his father’s face.  He had heard almost nothing of what was said, it was only when the coldly impersonal tones of the judge’s voice reached him out of, what was to him silence, that he was stung to a full comprehension of what was going on about him.  The faces of the crowd had blended until they were as indistinguishable as the face of humanity itself.  For him there had been but the one tragic presence in that dingy room; and now—­as the dull gray winter twilight enveloped him,—­wherever he turned his eyes, on the snow-covered pavement, in the bare branches of the trees,—­there he saw, endlessly repeated, the white drawn face of his father.

His capacity for endurance seemed to measure itself against the slow days.  A week—­two weeks—­and the trial would end, but how?  If the verdict was guilty, North’s friends would still continue their fight for his life.  He must sustain himself beyond what he felt to be the utmost limit of his powers; and always, day after day, there would be that face with its sunken eyes and bloodless lips, to summon him into its presence.

He found himself at his own door, and paused uncertainly.  He passed a tremulous hand before his eyes.  Was he sure of Gilmore,—­was he sure of Evelyn, who must know that North was innocent?  The thought of her roused in him all his bitter sense of hurt and injury.  North had trampled on his confidence and friendship!  The lines of his face grew hard.  This was to be his revenge,—­his by every right, and his fears should rob him of no part of it!