Page:The Berkeleys and their neighbors.djvu/100

 *times do under these excitements. He was pale, but singularly self-possessed and alert, and looked invariably trim and composed. He forgot everything in those days but the negro he was trying to save from the gallows. The lawyers who opposed him pounded him unmercifully. They too, caught the infection of enthusiasm. It would be scandalous to be beaten by an untried hand in such a case as that, with such admirable fighting ground as they had.

One afternoon, when the court adjourned early on account of a slight illness of one of the jurors, Pembroke mounted his horse and rode off far into the woodlands. When he was out of sight of the village he put spurs to his horse and dashed along the country road. It did him good. He felt already as if he had gained strength enough to last him even at the rate he was using it up if the trial should last two weeks more. Presently he brought his horse down to a walk, and enjoyed the strange restfulness and strength he felt possessing him. Suddenly he came face to face with Olivia Berkeley, riding quietly along the same road.

It would be no exaggeration to say he had forgotten her existence. He had not thought once of her or of Madame Koller, or Ahlberg, anybody but Bob Henry. It had not been ten days since he had seen her, but he felt as if it had been ten years. She looked very pretty and Amazon-like on her light-built black, in her close habit.

"Papa tells me great things of you," she said,