Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/452

 "I understand," exclaimed Wilson, his face flushing. "It is a damned outrage! I didn't know such a thing could be done. I thought every man was presumed innocent until proven guilty! Instead of that, they put him in the Rogues' Gallery!"

"You are as innocent as an angel from heaven," averred the white-bearded Wadham extravagantly, as he laid an affectionate hand upon the shoulder of the younger man.

"You are, indeed," echoed Hayes, his voice hoarse with emotion. "I confess again that we doubted for a time, but your character rises triumphant to the test."

The minister was unwilling to trust himself to further speech; for his disappointment with the verdict had been great, and the sympathetic loyalty of these trusted friends made self-control difficult, so with only a nod of comprehension, he turned quickly to where Detective Larsen waited.

It was nearly one hour later when the minister, clothed again, stepped out upon the street. Behind him was his record in the criminal history of the State of California. He had seen his name go into the card index with a wife murderer on one side of him and the author of an unmentionable crime upon the other. With the sickening memory of his loathsome ordeal searing his brain he was only half-conscious of the clatter and bang of the busy city life about him. Mercifully the gaping crowd had dispersed. Hurrying people went this way and that, intent upon their own concerns. But a newsboy, intent, too, on his concerns, thrust the noon edition of The Sentinel before the minister's eyes. Seeking the headline by habit, as the eyes of the victim turn to the torturing irons, he read in letters as black and bold as any he had seen that week, the verdict of Judge Brennan.