“And I have to go back and tell John that after all our hopes, after all our prayers—­”

“Perhaps you would better not go back,” he suggested.

“Not go back?  No, I must see him!  You would not deny me this—­”

“I would deny you nothing,” said her father fervently.

“Dismiss the carriage, and we will walk to the station; there is time?”

“Yes.”

For a little while they walked on in silence, the girl’s hands clasped about her father’s arm.

“I can not understand it yet!” said Elizabeth at length, speaking in a fearful whisper.  “It is incredible.  Oh, can’t you save him—­can’t you?”

The general did not trust himself to answer her.

“We have failed.  Do you think it would have been different if Judge Belknap had not been called away?”

General Herbert shook his head.

“And now we must go back to him!  We were to have telegraphed him; we won’t now, will we?”

“My poor, poor Elizabeth!” cried the general brokenly.

“How shall we ever tell him!”

“I will go alone,” said the general.

“No, no—­I must see him!  You are sure we have time to catch our train—­if we should miss it—­” and the thought gave her a sudden feverish energy.

“You need not hurry,” her father assured her.

“But look at your watch!” she entreated.

“We have half an hour,” he said.

“You can think of nothing more to do?” she asked, after another brief silence.

“Nothing, dear.”

Little was said until they boarded the train, but in the drawing-room of the Pullman which her father had been able to secure, Elizabeth’s restraint forsook her, and she abandoned herself to despair.  Her father silently took his place at her side.  Oppressed and preoccupied, the sting of defeat unmitigated, he was struggling with the problem of the future.  The morrow with its hideous tragedy seemed both the end and the beginning.  One thing was clear to him, they must go away from Idle Hour where North had been so much a part of Elizabeth’s life.  Nothing had been added to this decision when at length the train pulled into Mount Hope.

“We are home, dear,” he said gently.

[Illustration:  She abandoned herself to despair.]

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

THE LAST LONG DAY

A long day, the last of many long days he told himself, was ended, and John North stood by his window.  Below in the yard into which he was looking, but within the black shadow cast by the jail, was the gallows.  Though indistinguishable in the darkness, its shape was seared on his brain, for he had lived in close fellowship with all it emphasized.  It was his gallows, it had grown to completion under his very eyes that it might destroy him in the last hour.