“Then He did hear!” she said in an awestruck tone.
“Who heard?”
“God heard, away up in heaven like they said in Sunday School. I didn’t believe it but now I do. But I tried it anyway, and He heard. I ast Him would He please bring her back to life again and He’s done it!”
Dan pressed the little hand he held and said huskily:
“Yes, Kid, He’s done it. I guess there was more than one asking for that same thing. Well, here we are, and—There she is!”
CHAPTER XXX
The trial had been going hard with Darcy, as little Lib had surmised. Even the old Judge had been crabbed in some of his orders, and thrown anxious glances among the witnesses searching in vain for some ray of hope. He loved Darcy and things seemed to be going against him.
Not for one minute in his heart of hearts did Judge Peterson believe that Darcy Sherwood was guilty of such things as he was being charged with, and when he stood up straight and handsome in the prisoner’s box to answer to the question: “Guilty or not Guilty?” he had admired the straight, clear look with which he faced the roomful of curious enemies and anxious friends. Slowly Darcy had swept the room with his glance as if searching for one on whom he could rely. Anxiously his eyes rested on his sister Ellen, sitting huddled behind her handkerchief, and on the little shrinking Lib, looking so fierce beside her, surprisedly on the minister and his wife, taking in their kindly faces, something true and real about them. He knew they were Joyce’s friends and he liked their being there. There was nothing hostile about them. Then his gaze wandered to the four men huddled together in a corner with Tyke spreading himself as their leader, making loud mouthed remarks and casting furtive, sidelong glances, keeping his eyes away from the prisoner. Darcy took them in half amusedly, wholly comprehending, almost a smile of contempt flitting across his face, before he turned deliberately and faced his enemy, Gene, and looked him keenly down with a cold, righteous glance. Then he turned back to the Judge and said quietly, “Not Guilty, Your Honor,” as if there had been no pause between the question and the answer. The Judge found himself watching the boy and wondering where he got his poise, his cool calm look, that might almost be described as that of peace.
From the start Darcy sat in his place and watched each actor in the little scene before him as if he were somehow outside of it all, detached from the whole thing, as if the outcome were of little moment to him, only the persons.
Darcy had not asked for a lawyer. In fact, he had refused one. He would not ask anybody to help him, nor tell anything that would give a clue to where he had been or what he had been doing. He had told them he would plead his own cause when the time came.