EVERYDAY LIFE LIBRARY No.1

Published by EVERYDAY LIFE, Chicago

THE COQUETTE'S VICTIM

BY CHARLOTTE M. BRAEME

[Illustration]




CHAPTER I.

The Trial.


Mr. Kent was a very able magistrate. He had sat on the bench for many
years and was considered a man of great legal attainments and skill. He
very seldom erred in his judgment, and being gifted with a natural
shrewdness, he saw the difference at once between a guilty and an
innocent man.

He rarely erred; long practice had made him an adept in reading faces.

But on this morning, the fourteenth of May, he was puzzled. Many cases
had been brought before him. Drunken men dismissed with a fine and a
reprimand, thieves sentenced to weeks or months of imprisonment, wives
with pale faces and bruised arms had given reluctant evidence against