Mrs. Ollnee turned to her son. "If all they say is true, Victor, we are the victims of some lying devils—"
Leo soothingly laid her hand on her arm. "Let us not think about that just now. Let us wait until we are safely out of this dreadful place."
Victor perceived that his mother was shaken to the very deeps of her faith. She was trembling with excitement and weakness, and his anxiety deepened into a fear that she might faint. "There are devils here," she whispered. "I feel them all about me—bestial, horrible—take me away!"
"Can't we go now?" he asked of the officer, who seemed to have an eye on them. "My mother is not well."
"Wait till the bail is fixed up," the officer replied, pleasantly but inexorably.
They remained in silence till Mrs. Joyce and Mr. Bartol appeared. Then Victor hurried his mother out into the street, eager to escape the desolating air of this moral charnel-house. It was by no means a perfectly pure atmosphere without, but it was fresher than within, and Mrs. Ollnee revived almost instantly. "Oh, the swarms of unclean spirits in there!" she said, looking back with a face of horror.
Mrs. Joyce put her into the car with Leo and told them to go directly home, while she, with Victor, took Mr. Bartol to his office. Victor, stunned by the new and crushing blow which had fallen upon him, turned to the great lawyer with a boy's trust and admiration. "What can we do?" he asked, as soon as they had taken their seats in the car.
Mr. Bartol did not attempt to make light of the case. His dark, strong face was very grave as he answered: "For the present we can do very little beyond getting our bearings. It seems to me at the moment as though the whole question hinged upon the possibility of dual personality, and so far as I am concerned, I have no mind upon that matter. I must give it attention before I can reply. Our immediate concern is to keep your mother from further trouble and assault. If, as the prosecution stated, there are others in this fight, they and the press can make it very unpleasant for you all. Miss Florence Aiken has a powerful and vindictive pen. She will not cease her persecution—for she is at the bottom of the case."
Mrs. Joyce turned to him with eager face. "I wish you would invite Mrs. Ollnee and her son up to your farm for a few days."
"I do so with pleasure. I am going up to-night on the eight-o'clock train, and I shall be very glad to have them go with me, if they care to do so. We can then talk the whole case over at our leisure and in quiet. Perhaps you can run up and stay over Sunday with us."