circumstantial evidence. Krovac had testified that Torrance had made
threats against Compton in his presence, and there was no way in which
Jimmy's attorneys could refute the perjured statement. Jimmy himself had
come to realize that his attorney was fighting now for his life, that
the verdict of the jury was already a foregone conclusion and that the
only thing left to fight for now was the question of the penalty.

Daily he saw in the court-room the faces of the three girls who had
entered so strangely into his life. He noticed, with not a little sorrow
and regret, that Elizabeth Compton and Harriet Holden always sat apart
and that they no longer spoke. He saw the effect of the strain of the
long trial on Edith Hudson. She looked wan and worried, and then finally
she was not in court one day, and later, through Harriet Holden, he
learned that she was confined to her room with a bad cold.

Jimmy's sentiments toward the three women whose interests brought them
daily to the court-room had undergone considerable change. The girl that
he had put upon a pedestal to worship from afar, the girl to whom he had
given an idealistic love, he saw now in another light. His reverence for
her had died hard, but in the face of her arrogance, her vindictiveness
and her petty snobbery it had finally succumbed, so that when he
compared her with the girl who had been of the street the latter
suffered in no way by the comparison.

Harriet Holden's friendship and loyalty were a never-ending source of
wonderment to him, but he accepted her own explanation, which, indeed,
was fair enough, that her innate sense of justice had compelled her to
give him her sympathy and assistance.

Just how far that assistance had gone Jimmy did not know, though of late