But alas, others knew it also, and thick as the crowd was in front, it was even thicker here, and far more tumultuous.  Word had gone about that the father of Oliver Ostrander had been given his lesson at last, and the curiosity of the populace had risen to fever-heat in their anxiety to see how the proud Ostrander would bear himself in his precipitate downfall.  They had crowded there to see and they would see.  Were he to shirk the ordeal!  Were he to wait for the square to be cleared—­But they knew him too well to fear this.  He will come—­nay, he is coming now—­and coming alone!  No other figure looms so grandly in a doorway, nor is there any other face in Shelby whose pallor could strike so coldly to the heart, or rouse such conflicting emotions.

He was evidently not prepared to see his path quite so heavily marked out for him by the gaping throng; but after one look, he assumed some show of his old commanding presence and advanced bravely down the steps, awing some and silencing all, until he had reached his carriage step and the protection of the officers on guard.

Then a hoot rose from some far-off quarter of the square, and he turned short about and the people saw his face.  Despair had seized it, and if any one there desired vengeance, he had it.  The knell of active life had been rung for this man.  He would never remount the courthouse steps, or face again a respectful jury.

As for Deborah, she had shrunk out of sight at his approach, but as soon as he had ridden off, she looked eagerly for a taxicab to carry her in his wake.  She could not let him ride that mile alone.  She was still fearful for him, though the mass of people about her was rapidly dissolving away, and the streets growing clear.

But an apprehension still greater, because more personal, seized her when she found herself behind him on the long road.  Several minutes had been lost in obtaining a taxicab and she feared that she would be unable to overtake him before he reached his own gates.  This would be to subject Reuther to a shock which the poor child had little strength to meet.  She could not escape the truth long.  Soon, very soon she would have to be told that the man who stood so high in her esteem was now regarded as a common criminal.  But she must be prepared for the awful news.  She must be within reach of her mother’s arms when the blow fell destroying her past as well as her future.

Were minutes really so long—­the house really so far away?  Deborah gazes eagerly forward.  There is very little traffic in the streets to-day and the road ahead looks clear—­too clear, she cannot even see the dust raised by the judge’s rapidly disappearing carriage.  Can he have arrived home already?  No, or the carriage would be coming back, and not a vehicle is in view.