Paul Ralston by Mary Jane Holmes

After Miss Hansford and Elithe left the court room that afternoon there was but little to do. One or two unimportant witnesses were sworn and one or two recalled, when the prosecution was closed and many of the strangers hurried to the boats and cars which were to take them home. They had heard and seen what they came to see and hear,-Miss Hansford and Elithe. They had laughed at Miss Hansford, and said it was as good as a play and they had pitied Elithe, compelled to say what she did not want to say, and which proved so much against Paul that there seemed no hope for him. The trial would end on the morrow without doubt, and many were the conjectures as to what the verdict would be. Paul felt all this as he was driven back to jail after Tom had taken Miss Hansford and Elithe home. He had asked for them and smiled when he spoke of Miss Hansford's manner in court. Of Elithe's testimony he said nothing, but she was constantly in his mind as she looked at first when telling what she saw and heard, and as she looked at the last under the cross-examination, denying with energy the story of her engagement to Jack. That gave him some comfort, or would have done so if there had been comfort to be gained from any source.

He knew the trial would end the following day, and he would know the worst there was to know. Those twelve men, who had looked kindly but pityingly at him as they listened to Elithe, would do their duty as he should do it in their place, and must find him guilty. If they did not he was disgraced for life, and could never hold up his head again as he once had held it. There was no light in the future, and his appearance was that of an old man when he reëntered the jail. The officer who conducted him there was very kind and the jailer's wife brought him many delicacies for his supper. But he could not eat. The last two days had been terrible to him, more terrible than any day could ever be again, he thought, unless. He could not finish the sentence and contemplate a possible time when he would say good-bye forever to a world in which he had been so happy until within a few weeks. These weeks had seemed a horrible nightmare from which he must awaken either for better or worse. The awakening had come, and it was for the worse, and never had he felt so entirely hopeless and miserable as when he sat alone in his room reviewing the events of the day and dreading those of the morrow.