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 and months were dragging slowly to the day of trial. The rush and roar and fever of the city were now a memory as he sat in brooding silence.

The press was hostile, and reporters worked daily with an army of detectives to find every scrap of evidence against him, and as the day fixed for his arraignment drew near, story after story appeared in the more sensational journals, written with the clearest purpose of influencing the mind of every possible juryman.

Ruth's heart sank with anguish as she read these stories, but they stirred her to more vigorous action. She read every newspaper carefully and followed every clue of reporter and detective to anticipate its influence.

Not a day passed but that she carried to the man behind the bars a message of courage and cheer.

Gordon would sit and watch for that one face whose light was hope until it became the only reality in a universe of silence and darkness. His whole life seemed to focus now on the little face with its dimpled chin and shy, tremulous lips smiling into his cell.

The soft contralto voice, even when it sank to the lowest notes of melancholy, was full of tenderness and caressing feeling. As he touched her tapering fingers on the steel bars and watched the red blood mount until her delicate ears shone like transparent shells in the dark mass of her hair, visions of their