The words were ambiguous; startlingly so, she felt; but, in hope that they would strike him otherwise, she found courage at last to raise her eyes in search of what lay in his.  Nothing, or so she thought at first, beyond the glint of a natural interest; then her mind changed, and she felt that it would take one much better acquainted with his moods than herself to read to its depths a gaze so sombre and inscrutable.

His answer, coming after a moment of decided suspense, only deepened this impression.  It was to this effect: 

“Madam, we have said our say on this subject.  If you have come to see the matter as I see it, I can but congratulate you upon your good sense, and express the hope that it will continue to prevail.  Reuther is worthy of the best—­” he stopped abruptly.  “Reuther is a girl after my own heart,” he gently supplemented, with a glance towards his papers lying in a bundle at his elbow, “and she shall not suffer because of this disappointment to her girlish hopes.  Tell her so with my love.”

It was a plain dismissal.  Mrs. Scoville took it as such, and quietly left the room.  As she did so she was approached by Reuther who handed her a letter which had just been delivered.  It was from Mr. Black and read thus: 

We have found the rogue and have succeeded in inducing him to leave town.  He’s a man in the bill-sticking business and he owns to a grievance against the person we know.

Deborah’s sleep that night was without dreams.

XXI

IN THE COURT ROOM

About this time, the restless pacing of the judge in his study at nights became more frequent and lasted longer.  In vain Reuther played her most cheerful airs and sang her sweetest songs, the monotonous tramp kept up with a regularity nothing could break.

“He’s worried by the big case now being tried before him,” Deborah would say, when Reuther’s eyes grew wide and misty in her sympathetic trouble.  And there was no improbability in the plea, for it was a case of much moment, and of great local interest.  A man was on trial for his life and the circumstances of the case were such that the feeling called forth was unusually bitter; so much so, indeed, that every word uttered by the counsel and every decision made by the judge were discussed from one end of the county to the other, and in Shelby, if nowhere else, took precedence of all other topics, though it was a Presidential year and party sympathies ran high.

The more thoughtful spirits were inclined to believe in the innocence of the prisoner; but the lower elements of the town, moved by class prejudice, were bitterly antagonistic to his cause and loud for his conviction.