“My affairs are worth considering only as they affect you, Elizabeth!” said North.  “I was thinking of you when Brockett came to tell me you were here.  Won’t you go away from Mount Hope?  I want you to forget,—­no—­” for she was about to speak; “wait until I have finished;—­even if I am acquitted this will always be something discreditable in the eyes of the world, it’s going to follow me through life!  It is going to be hard for me to bear, it will be doubly hard for you, dear.  I want your father to take you away and keep you away until this thing is settled.  I don’t want your name linked with mine; that’s why I am sorry you came here, that’s why you must never come here again.”

“You mustn’t ask me to go away from Mount Hope, John!” said Elizabeth.  “I am ready and willing to face the future with you; I was never more willing than now!”

“You don’t understand, Elizabeth!” said North.  “We are just at the beginning.  The trial, and all that, is still before us—­long days of agony—­”

“And you would send me away when you will most need me!” she said, with gentle reproach.

“I wish to spare you—­”

“But wherever I am, it will be the same!”

“No, no,—­you must forget—!”

“If I can’t,—­what then?” she asked, looking up into his face.

“I want you to try!” he urged.

She shook her head.

“Dear, I have lived through all this; I have asked myself if I really cared so much that nothing counted against the little comfort I might be to you; so much that the thought of what I am to you would outweigh every other consideration, and I am sure of myself.  If I were not, I should probably wish to escape from it all.  I am as much afraid of public opinion as any one, and as easily hurt, but my love has carried me beyond the point where such things matter!”

“My dear!  My dear!  I am not worthy of such love.”

“You must let me be the judge of that.”

“Suppose the verdict is—­guilty?” he asked.

“No,—­no, it will never be that!” But the color left her cheeks.

“I don’t suppose it will be,” agreed North hastily.

It was a cruel thing to force this doubt on her.

“You won’t send me away, John?” she entreated.  “If I were to leave Mount Hope now it would break my heart!  I—­we—­my father and I, wish every one to know that our confidence in you is unshaken.”

North turned to the general with a look of inquiry, of appeal.  Something very like a sigh escaped the older man’s lips, but he squared his shoulders manfully for the burdens they must bear.  He said quietly: 

“Let us consider a phase of the situation that Elizabeth and I have been discussing this afternoon.  Watt Harbison is no doubt doing all he can for you; but he was at Idle Hour last night, and said he would, himself, urge on you the retention of some experienced criminal lawyer.  He suggested Ex-judge Belknap; I approve of this suggestion—­”