Wheeling round toward the window-door through which he had
entered, he stood defiantly, awaiting his pursuers, and heedless of the
astonished eyes fixed upon him. It was not till some seconds had gone by,
and he realized that he was not followed, that he glanced about the room.
When he did so it was to ignore the woman, in order to concentrate all his
gaze on the little, iron-gray man who, still seated, stared at him, with
lips parted. In his own turn, Norrie Ford was dumb and wide-eyed in
amazement It was a long minute before either spoke.
"You?"
"You?"
The monosyllable came simultaneously from each. The little woman got to
her feet in alarm. There was inquiry as well as terror in her
face--inquiry to which her husband felt prompted to respond.
"This is the man," he said, in a voice of forced calmness,
"whom--whom--we've been talking about."
"Not the man--you--?"
"Yes," he nodded, "the man I--I--sentenced to death--this morning."
II
"Evie!"
Mrs. Wayne went to the door, but on Ford's assurance that her child had
nothing to fear from him, she paused with her hand on the knob to look in
curiosity at this wild young man, whose doom lent him a kind of
fascination.
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