On that night, as on many another, North retraced step by step the ugly path that wound its tortuous way from McBride’s back office to the cell in which he—­John North—­faced the gallows.  But the oftener he trod this path the more maze-like it became, until now he was hopelessly lost in its intricacies; discouraged, dazed, confused, almost convinced that in some blank moment of lost identity it was his hand that had sent the old man on his long last journey.  As Evelyn Langham had questioned, so now did John North:  “If not I, then who did murder Archibald McBride?”

In a vain search for the missing handy-man, General Herbert had opened his purse wider than North or even Evelyn realized.  There seemed three possibilities in the instance of Montgomery.  Either he knew McBride’s murderer and testified falsely to shield him; or else he knew nothing and had been hired by some unknown enemy to swear North into the penitentiary; or—­and the third possibility seemed not unlikely—­it was he himself that had clambered over the shed roof after killing and robbing the old merchant.

North turned on his cot and his thoughts turned with him from Montgomery to Gilmore, who also, with uncharacteristic cowardliness had fled the scene of his illegal activities and the indictment that threatened him anew.  “What was the gambler’s part in the tragedy?” He hated North; he loved Marshall Langham’s wife.  But neither of these passions shaped themselves into murderous motives.  Langham himself furnished food for reflection and speculation.  Evidently in the most dire financial difficulties; evidently under Gilmore’s domination; evidently burdened with some guilty knowledge,—­but there was no evidence against him, he had credibly accounted for himself on that Thanksgiving afternoon, and North for the hundredth time dismissed him with the exclamation:  “Marsh Langham a murderer?  Impossible!”

The first cold rays of light, announcing the belated winter’s dawn, touched with gray fingers the still grayer face of the sleepless prisoner.  Out of the shadows that they coined came a vision of Evelyn Langham.  And again for the hundredth time, North was torn between the belief that she, by her testimony, might save him and the unconquerable determination to keep from Elizabeth Herbert the knowledge of his affair with Langham’s wife.  Better end his worthless existence than touch her fair life with this scandal.  But of what was Evelyn Langham thinking during the days of his trial?  What if she should voluntarily break her silence!  Should he not send for her—­there was a sound at his door.  North started to his feet only to see the fat round face of the deputy sheriff as he came bringing the morning’s hot coffee and thick buttered bread.

The town bell was ringing for nine o’clock when the deputy sheriff again appeared to escort him into court, and as they entered the room North saw that it was packed to the doors.  His appearance won a moment of oppressive silence, then came the shuffling of feet and the hum of whispered conversation.