"And I am a new sensation, am I?"
"You bet you are! Why, man, you're nothing short of a godsend. And most of these people," he swept a hand over the coterie represented on the table, "are from New York themselves. They're not writing to a stranger exactly. They know who your family is—or was. They know all about you."
Kenwick's lips stiffened. "Well, they certainly have that advantage over me."
"I don't mean to imply, of course, that they've been investigating your personal history," Dayton hastened to explain. "But Kenwick is not an inconspicuous name in the East. And then you've been in the service and——"
"I'm glad you mentioned that," the prisoner cut in. "It reminds me of something I want to say to you. When you get up to talk in court, don't you make any plea for me on the grounds that I've been in the service. That's one thing I won't stand for. The man who was in the army is a different man from the alleged murderer of Ralph Regan. I'm not going to have his record smeared with this horrible thing."
Dayton dropped the letters to the table as though they had bitten him. "Why, Mr. Kenwick! You've got a right to the consideration that would naturally——"
"If I've got a right to it, I've got a right to waive it. This country is flooded with men who expect to beat their way all through life on the plea that they've been in the service. And there's nothing so despicable on God's earth as that. I use my uniform to fight in, not to hide in. Get me?"
Dayton was obviously crestfallen. He got up from the hard cot and stood looking at his client gravely. Kenwick gathered up the pile of envelopes. "Take this junk out of here when you go, please. And don't let them send in any more flowers. They can save those for the funeral. But I'm not dead yet."
"You may be very soon, though, if you don't listen to sense," his adviser remarked bluntly. "I haven't wanted to get you worked up over the case, because that's poor policy and it doesn't buy us anything. But it strikes me, Mr. Kenwick, that you don't realize what a very serious position you are in."
The ghost of a smile appeared upon the prisoner's face. It was a terrible little smile, and he was not even conscious of its existence. He was only conscious that every nerve in his body ached with weariness and that he felt faint from want of food. Two pictures were stamping themselves alternately upon his brain; the dim, sinister interior of Rest Hollow, and the fire-lighted room on Pine Street. One of these incessantly erased and superseded the other. And he knew that there could be no division of their supremacy. Only one of them might survive. Day and night the memory of them racked his jaded brain. For the humiliation of his present position, not the ultimate outcome of the trial, burned him with a consuming flame.