of Ham Rutherford's crime. She saw the little dark bookshop, the
professor's thin, sneering face, the hideous anger of the cripple,
the blow, the dead body, Rutherford's arrest. And when her brain was
sick, it would turn for relief to the noble story of Hugh's
self-sacrifice, only to be balked by a sense of unreality. What the
detective had told, briefly and dryly, lived in her mind convincingly;
but Hugh's romance, that had glowed on his tongue, now lay lifeless
on her fancy. Back her mind would go to the bookshop, the gibing
professor, the heavy paper-cutter.

In the dawn she heard Bella get up with a deep-shaken sigh and go
about her preparations for breakfast. But it was noon before the two
men left.




CHAPTER VIII


Hugh came up from his hiding-place like a man risen from the dead.
They helped him to his chair before the fire; they poured coffee down
him, rubbed his blue, stiff hands. He sat looking up pitifully, his
eyes turning from one to the other of them like those of a beaten
hound. All the masterfulness, all the bombast, had been crushed out
of him; even the splendor of his flaring hazel eyes was dimmed--they
were hollow, hopeless, old. For a long time he did not speak, only
drank the coffee and submitted himself meekly to their ministrations;
then at last he touched Sylvie with a trembling hand.