It was very still in the district courtroom. The jury had just brought in a verdict of guilty, and the judge was about to pronounce the sentence.

The room was filled with the usual crowd of spectators. The lawyers occupied the space railed off from the raised seats at the rear where the public was admitted. All whispers and noise on the part of witnesses, attorneys, and court officers had ceased, and every eye was on the man who had just been pronounced guilty.

"Prisoner at the bar," said Judge Vernon, leaning a little forward in his chair until his arm rested on the desk in front of him, "have you anything to say why sentence should not be pronounced upon you?"

The prisoner was a young negro not more than twenty years old. He had been standing when the verdict of the jury was given. His hand rested on the back of a chair, and he faced the judge with a look of stolid, sullen defiance.

"I've got only this to say, judge. The shooting was accidental. If I'd had a fair trial, I'd been let off. But everything's been against me here."

There was a pause while the man passed the back of his hand over his mouth and shifted his position nervously.

Judge Vernon waited a moment.

"Is that all you have to say?"

"That's all, unless—I think I ought to have another trial. I don't count this fair, judge."

"You have been fully and fairly tried," replied the judge firmly. Then, after a moment of silence, he continued: "Prisoner at the bar, I sentence you to the penitentiary for twenty years. Bailiff, remove the prisoner. Call the next case."

The prisoner made a movement as if he intended to utter a word, but his lawyer behind him pulled him down into a seat; the bailiff came to the little gate of the railing and beckoned to the prisoner, who was led out. The machinery of the court went on, the next case was called, and the usual stir of the courtroom rose again, in sharp contrast with the moment's intense stillness that had just preceded.

The evening of that same day, as Judge Vernon sat down to dinner in his residence up on the boulevard, his wife noticed an unusual seriousness in his face. She did not speak of it at once, however.

"Where is Claude?" the judge asked, as his wife and two girls took their places at the table. They all remained standing, for the judge held to the custom which his father before him had observed, of waiting until every member of his family was present before sitting down to the table.

"He was invited out to a card-party at the Carltons'," said Mrs. Vernon, slowly.

The judge frowned, but said nothing. They all sat down, and Mrs. Vernon looked carefully across the table at her husband. It was then that she spoke of his look of care, greater, it seemed to her, than usual.

"Have you had a trying day, John?" asked Mrs. Vernon, a little timidly. She did not often venture to question her husband about his duties as judge.

"Yes," Judge Vernon answered, almost curtly. Then he looked across at his wife, and went on in a different tone. "The fact is, Eliza, the condition of affairs out at Freetown is getting desperate. To-day I sentenced one of the boys from that district to twenty years for a shooting affray. That makes over fifteen criminal cases from that neighborhood in two weeks. Crime and rowdyism of every description seem to be on the increase there."

"Why don't you double up the sentences, father?" asked one of the girls, a stylishly dressed young woman.

Judge Vernon looked at her, and smiled slightly.

"I'm afraid that doubling the sentences is not the cure for the crimes committed. In fact, Isabel, I am afraid that the heavier the sentence, the more the convicted criminals are regarded as heroes by their companions and so regard themselves."

"There ought to be some law to prevent the dreadful state of things in Freetown," said Winifred, the other girl, a little younger than her sister. "Claude was telling me the other day that the hardest, worst elements in the city are crowded into Freetown, and that it isn't safe to walk through it after midnight. Just think of it! Right near the best residence part of the city, too. I think there ought to be a law compelling those folks to sell out to the white people!" continued Winifred, whose ideas of law were somewhat vague and general.

"I'm afraid they are there to stay," said Judge Vernon, absently. He seemed to be brooding over something, and even the light-minded Isabel was afraid to interrupt her somewhat stern father when he looked that way. He did not speak for some time, and then, as the girls were talking over a theatre party to be formed for an evening of that week, Judge Vernon suddenly asked again about his son.

"Has Claude finished that writing I gave him to do?" he asked his wife.

Mrs. Vernon looked down at the table, as she answered in a low voice, "He has not touched it yet."

Judge Vernon looked angry. "Send him into the library when he comes in," he said. He rose abruptly, and went into a little room adjoining the library, used for a private reading-room by himself.

Isabel and Winifred looked at each other. The look said very plainly, "I'm glad I'm not in Claude's place."

After supper Isabel went to the piano, and Winifred took up a book. Mrs. Vernon sat down to some fancy-work. The evening passed on slowly. It was an unusual thing for the girls to be at home. They found it very stupid. At last they went up to their rooms, and Mrs. Vernon sat on by her beautiful lamp, apparently deeply interested in her work. But she was thinking of her son, and was not happy. Often she lifted her head to listen while the fingers ceased to be busy, and as often she dropped her head again and went on. The night was very still, and it seemed impossible that events were rapidly shaping which would before morning change the lives of more than one person in the city of Merton.

The prisoner had been taken at once from the courtroom to the county jail. He had been put in the cage where a dozen other criminals were confined. He had at once gone to a corner, and remained there in sullen silence, refusing to talk with any one. The day had drawn to its close. The lights in the corridors had been turned on, supper had been served, and most of the men who had been walking about in the cage had gone into their cells.

The jailer suddenly came down a short flight of stone steps that led from the detention-room, and, unlocking the cage door, called out, "Burke Williams!"

At first there was no answer. Then the figure of the negro rose and came towards the door.

"What do you want?" the prisoner asked in a surly voice.

"Come out here!" called the jailer, roughly. "And keep a civil tongue. You're wanted up in the detention-room. Quick, now! Move along!"

The prisoner came out, and the jailer locked the door, and, taking out the keys, shoved the man along the short corridor towards the flight of steps. The negro purposely delayed his going as much as possible.

"Move along!" cried the jailer. The prisoner pretended to stumble, and the jailer roughly caught hold of his arm and pulled him forward. At the same instant, as quick as lightning the prisoner seized the jailer, and with the exercise of all his young strength threw him heavily upon the floor. The jailer's head struck on the corner of the stone step, and he lay there stunned.

With a rapidity that seemed impossible from his awkward movements before, the prisoner snatched the keys where the jailer had let them fall, and with one bound was up the stone steps and in the detention-room. This opened from the jailer's office, and that had a door opening directly on the street.

There was one man in the detention-office, and he had risen and was near the door leading to the guard-room. The prisoner saw in an instant that it was the attorney who had conducted his case. He had come to have an interview with reference to some part of the case relating to a motion for a new trial. In special cases prisoners were allowed to confer with visitors in the detention-room.

The negro dashed through the room before the astonished attorney could stop him. The jailer's door was locked, but from the bunch of keys the prisoner chanced to choose the right one first. He thrust it into the lock, turned the bolt just as the bewildered lawyer rushed upon him, opened the door, shut it, and, bracing his excited strength upon it, locked it again.

He was outdoors and for the moment free. He could hear the uproar from within the jail as the assistant jailer and a companion rushed into the office from the corridors where they had been busy clearing up the prisoners' supper things.

It was just at this moment that Judge Vernon sat down to dinner.