"Well, I let him go. You see, I don't know but maybe the habeas chorus proceedings would be squashed like the rest. Besides, the eejit boy has been raising all kinds of hell down at the jail, raving and shouting and threatening me. About a hour ago or less I concluded to let him loose, so as to get shut of him."
"You did let him go? And he was not discharged?"
"Well, now, what's the difference, Judge," said the old man. "We couldn't really get no sleep down there, he was making so much fuss, so I just let him out. He lit out upon the street right thataway, towards home—not so very long ago."
Judge Henderson gazed moodily in the direction to which Tarbush pointed.
"Well," said he, "maybe you did right, and in any case this isn't the time and place to discuss it. My professional hours"—and he turned away and walked slowly up the stairs to his own office, intent upon the purpose already prominent in his mind.
The arc light illumined fully the great town clock in the cupola of the courthouse. The hands pointed to a quarter of one, after midnight.
The deliberations of the jury of Spring Valley might have been said to have concluded at the time when Aurora Lane, her son Don, and old Hod Brooks—the last group of the slow procession—themselves turned the corner and emerged upon the public square. The matter of bringing in the verdict was another affair.