victory for the peace and dignity of the state, due wholly, it was said,
to the energy and sagacity of the young district attorney. A murder had
been so cunningly done that suspicion could fasten nowhere, until
Byington laid his finger upon a man of so unspotted a name that no one
else had had the mental courage to point to him. Through a long and
masterly untangling of contradictions the state's counsel had so
overwhelmingly proved him guilty that he had confessed without waiting
for the jury's verdict.

"Yes," said many, "it was a great stroke, Leonard's management of that
thing." And not a few added that it had made him an older man--"that or
something." Those who were of his politics, and even some who were not,
stopped him in Main Street and State Street to "shake" and to say,
without too much care for logical sequence, how soon, in their opinion,
he would be the commonwealth's "favorite son."

"My dear Mrs. Morris," said the General, "every town has at least one."
But even Mrs. Morris could see the father's faith and pride through the
old soldier's satire.




X

THE STORM REGATHERS


On the other hand, things were going ill with the little church of All
Angels. Arthur kept his people as tensely strung as ever, but he no