The judge shook his head slowly. “Your point of view grows more and more inexplicable, Mr. Brant. In what possible way could your confidence in me wrong any one?”
Brant leaned against the wall with folded arms, the gray eyes narrowing and the firm jaw settling itself in rigid lines.
“Perhaps the word was ill chosen. But if I should do as you ask, there would be sorrow and grief and misery where I would fain see happiness. And for myself there would be regrets deep and lifelong. You will say this is more mystery, but I can not help it. I know quite well what I am doing, and I have counted the cost to the last farthing. My life has been a sorry failure, Judge Langford—so poor a thing that I can afford to give it freely if the law shall demand it.”
The judge pursed his lips and made another step in the outworking of the problem of deduction.
“Am I to understand by this that free speech on your part would involve others besides yourself?” he asked.
“It would involve others—yes, many others.”
“Without making your defense less hopeless than it appears to be at present?”
“Without bringing me anything that I could endure with half the fortitude that I shall take to the gallows. No; your sympathy and loving-kindness are very comforting to me, but you must pardon me if I say that they are quite undeserved. Whatever the jury sees fit to give me will doubtless have been earned, and well earned.”
The judge saw that the time for winning his client’s confidence was not yet ripe, and he rose and buttoned his coat.
“You are still giving me riddles, Mr. Brant, and while you elect to do that, no one can help you intelligently. I am not going to press you further this morning, but I shall come again—and yet again. Meanwhile, I am ready and anxious to act for you the moment you will permit it. I can’t say more, can I?”