"So do I!" broke out Judge Henderson at length, with a sudden gasp. "So do I! She's a good woman. I knew it last night. I've known it all along, in a way. It all came over me last night—I saw it all plain for the first time in all these years. Hod! You're right. I don't deserve mercy. I don't ask it—I'd be ashamed to."
"Religion," said Hod Brooks, quite irrelevantly, "is not altogether confined to churches, you know. A man's conviction may hit him anywhere—even in the office of the county treasurer of Jackson County. But if I was a preacher, Judge Henderson, I'd be mighty glad to hear you say what you have said."
In his face there showed some sort of strange emotion of his own, a sort of yearning for the understanding of his own nature by this other man; and some sort of rude man's sympathy for the broken man who stood before him.
"You both were young," said he softly and irrelevantly. "I'm not your judge."
"Hod," said Judge Henderson—"I'm done! I wouldn't go to the Senate tomorrow if they'd let me. For twenty years she's taken her fate. She's never told my name. She's never blamed me. She's paid all her debts. In the next twenty years—can I live as well as that?"
"Yes, she's paid her debts. We've all got to do that some time—there doesn't seem to be any good way of getting clear of an honest debt, does there? It costs considerable, sometimes." Hod Brooks' voice held no wavering, but it was not unkind.
"But now, Judge," he resumed, "we get around to my profession, which is that of the practice of the law. There's a true bill against the boy. State's Attorney Slattery don't amount to much—I know about a lot of things. You're the real intended prosecutor here. Now, I don't want any passing over of this case to another term of court—I'm not going to let that boy lie in jail."
"That was what I meant to do—I wasn't going to try for a conviction—I was going to try for delay."
"Come into court with me and openly ask the quashing of this indictment," said Hod Brooks. "And we can beat that delay game a thousand ways of the deck! But now, now—you did have the heart of a father, then? So, so—well, well! Say, Judge, we're not opponents—we're partners in this case."
"Hod——" began the other; but Hod Brooks was the master mind. "I believe we can show, some time, somehow," said he, "that the boy didn't do it. I know the boy's mother. Of course, his father wasn't so much!" He broke out into his great laugh, but in the corners of his eyes there was visible a dampness.