"Ah! you don't blame me," he ended brokenly. "I knew you would not!"
With his words, a reflection of the anger of his own eyes had sprung alive in the old man's. Judge Houston stood before Sargent, his hands gripping the shoulders of the young fellow with an intensity of sympathy.
"Don't say any more," he said in a low voice that trembled slightly. "I understand. I will stand with you."
"You!" Sargent moved away quickly, and stood staring at him. "You!" And then his lips trembled. The end of his strength came, and he threw himself across the sofa, his face in his hands, his whole body shaking convulsively. "It's more than I deserve," he said. "That all this should have come to me in one day—this hatred, and Captain Mentdrop's friendship—and your—love. It is too much to understand."
The old gentleman stood a moment beside the table, his hand again on the leather bound volume. As a shaft of light penetrated through the open door, it rested on him a moment, concentrating in the beautiful gentle eyes, and shining forth, in a deeper, fuller glory.
He went slowly to the sofa and sat down beside Sargent, his hand resting with its peacegiving power upon the bowed head.
In a long silence that followed, his lips were still, but within was a constantly repeated prayer, "God give me the power to lead him right. Give me this power—if nothing else." Then aloud, as the voice of his wife called to them from the dining-room. "It is nothing that I am doing for you—only what I would have done for my son—and yoy have come to take his place."
CHAPTER IV
HIS FIRST CASE
So the schoolhouse was closed again on the following Monday, and Sargent rode into the town to plead his first case before the bar.