The judge thought about it for a moment.
“In view of his most singular obstinacy, perhaps it will. It is worth trying, at all events. I will go to-morrow morning.”
“Thank you again,” said the editor, finding his hat. “I presume I need not say that we have little time to lose. The Grand Jury meets to-morrow, and Brant will doubtless be indicted during the week.”
“So I have been informed. No matter; we shall be diligent. If the young man will only confide in me we may be able to discover something which will serve to—to palliate his crime and to mitigate the severity of the inevitable sentence.”
So spoke the judge, as though the question of his client’s guilt was a question fully answered. But when he went to the door with his visitor he ventured a query which seemed to admit the thin edge of the wedge of uncertainty.
“There is no shadow of doubt in your mind, is there, Mr. Forsyth?—as to his guilt, I mean.”
“None whatever,” rejoined the editor sorrowfully. And he went his way saddened by the thought that he could answer no otherwise.
CHAPTER XXIX
IN WHICH A WILFUL MAN HAS HIS WAY
Since obstinacy, like a hound that is beaten, is constrained to course the truer for the blows of the whipper-in, two days of confinement and the anxious expostulations of Forsyth and Antrim appeared to have no mellowing effect upon the man who stood charged with the murder of James Harding. So far from it, time and the friendly efforts of the allies seemed but to crystallize reticent impulse into a fixed purpose strong to defeat any helpful emprise on the part of his friends.
Failing to beat down the guard of reticence in any face-to-face encounter, Forsyth had not been above bribing the turnkey to spy upon his prisoner; but if the man’s report was to be believed, the bribe was money wasted. Brant spent the time in reading, was calm and cheerful, and cared not to know what the newspapers were saying about him. A model prisoner in every respect, and a man whom he (the turnkey) would be sorry to see hanged.