"Couldn't do a thing!"

"That's too bad. It might be to your advantage if you could settle this case out of court. When will your father-in-law be in?"

"I'm looking for him here in a day or so, now."

"M-m." The attorney was thoughtful. "This is rather an unusual case," he resumed, "and I have been studying the complaint of the plaintiff. The old man, it seems to me, committed some very grave blunders."

"You think so?"

"Quite obvious. And while it will be difficult for the plaintiff to secure a judgment in such a case; it is, however, apparent that the sympathy of the court will be against your father-in-law in the proceedings."

Glavis was uncomfortable.

"Now I take notice here that the plaintiff states that his wife drew a check for two hundred dollars unknown to her husband, and that the Reverend had it cashed. That may be regular, but it will not help her father's case. Again, he complains that her father influenced the girl to sell a quarter section of land for less than one-tenth what it cost the plaintiff. Of course these are technicalities that while they cannot justify a judgment will win the sympathy of the jury. What the plaintiff must show, however, is that his father-in-law actually was the direct cause of and did alienate the affections of his wife. Such a case is not without parallel, but it is uncommon. A father alienating the affections of his daughter.

"Now where is your sister-in-law?"

"At home."

"Wish you'd bring her down. This is a complicated case, and we've got to conduct it with directness. She can be of great assistance in extricating her father from this predicament."

"All right, sir. When shall I bring her?"

"Oh, any time that is convenient. Tomorrow morning at nine will perhaps be the best. And, now, say! Have you any idea who the plaintiff is going to use as witnesses?"

"Why, I think he plans to bring his grandmother from what I can hear, for one."

"His grandmother? What does she know about it?"

"Well, she was in the house when my father-in-law went on the visit and the girl came away with him."

"I see. I'd like to know just what passed and what she heard and will testify to. I wonder whether she will testify that she overheard your father-in-law abusing this Baptiste to his wife?"

"I really don't know."

"Who else?"

"I heard something about him going to bring a doctor down, and also a lawyer."

"The doctor, eh?" He shook his head then a little dubiously. "This physician attended the girl while she was confined?"

"I think so."

"M-m. I see here where we have recorded that your father-in-law claims that the girl was neglected; didn't have proper medical attention. What about this? Have you any knowledge as to how many visits this doctor made to the bedside of this girl when she was sick? Any knowledge of what kind of bill was rendered by him?"

"I hear that his bill amounted to something like two hundred dollars."

"Two hundred! Great Scott! And for a dead baby! Gee! We'll have to keep away from neglect as an excuse. That's a fact. No jury will believe such a statement if that fellow shows where he's paid such a bill as that!"

Glavis shifted uneasily. He was seeing another side of the controversy.

Before he had only seen one side of it, and that side was as the Reverend had had him see it.

"You send or bring the girl down here tomorrow. It will be up to _her_ to keep her father out of jail, that's all. It will be up to _her_ to convince the court that she never loved this man, that all he did for her was by persuasion, and that her father only followed her instructions. In short, it's almost directly up to her; for the plaintiff has certainly got the goods on her dad if he can prove that she ever loved him."

Glavis was much disturbed when he went home. For the first time he was able to appreciate the full circumstances. It would be up to Orlean to save her father, and that he could see. He would take her to the lawyer, and have her carefully drilled. The success for them depended on her; on her falsifying to the court, for it could not be otherwise. For her to testify that she did not love--and had never loved Jean Baptiste, he knew would be a deliberate falsehood. It worried him, but he had to go through with it.

He accompanied her to the lawyer's office as agreed, and there she was made to understand the gravity of the situation, that everything depended on her statements, _and her statements only_.

Her father arrived the following day, and at the attorney's office in company with Orlean and Glavis, he was impressed with the nature of the defense. All were finally drilled in their course of action.

That night Orlean faced the most serious period in her life. She was a weak woman and her weakness had been the cause of it all. The trial was approaching--and the result was _up to her_. Her father's freedom, his continuance in the pulpit, his vindication of the action he had taken depended upon _her_, and _her strength_.

And that strength--for on that day she would _have_ to be strong,--_depended upon a lie_.

CHAPTER XIV

THE TRIAL--THE LIE--"AS GUILTY AS HELL!"

"_Not guilty, your honor!_"

The court room was silent for a time before any one stirred. It had been apparent that the decision would be so; because there were several reasons why the jury was constrained to render such a verdict.

Among the reasons, chiefly, was the fact that the plaintiff had failed to produce sufficient evidence to justify a verdict in his favor. His grandmother, his corroborating witness, had answered her last call just before she was to start for Chicago to give hers, the most incriminating testimony. The doctor who had attended his wife during her confinement was indisposed, and was represented only by an affidavit. But what had gone harder than anything against the plaintiff was his wife's testimony. Under the most severe examination, and cross examinations, she had stood on her statements. She had never loved her husband, and had not been, therefore, actuated by her father's influence into leaving him. She had instructed her father in all he had done, and that he was in no wise guilty as accused.

No jury could have rendered a verdict to the contrary under such circumstances, and no one--not even the plaintiff, had expected or even hoped that they would.

But in the minds of every man and woman in the crowded court room, N.J.

McCarthy stood a guilty man. Not even the faintest semblance of doubt as to this lingered in their minds. It was merely a case of insufficient evidence to convict. And while the people filed out into the air at the conclusion, every one had a vision of that arch hypocrite in his evil perpetuation. In their ears would always ring the story Jean Baptiste had told. Told without a tremor, he had recited the evils from the day he had married her up until the day she had sold her birthright for a mess of pottage. So vivid did he make it all that the court was held in a thraldom. For an hour and a half he detailed the evil of his enemy, his sinister purpose and action, his lordly deceit, and his artful cunningness, and brought women to tears by the sorrow in his face, his apparent grief and external mortification.

Never had the black population of the city listened to or witnessed a more eloquent appeal. But justice had been unable to interfere. The trial was over, and Newton Justine McCarthy left the court room a free man, with head held high, and walking with sure step.

Jean Baptiste left it calmly in company with his lawyers. They had anticipated losing the case before going into court, for it had been apparent to them that the outcome rested entirely with Baptiste's wife.

If they failed to shake her testimony; that she had never loved him, then they knew it was hopeless. It had all depended on her--_and she had stood by her father_.

"Well, I'm satisfied," said Baptiste as they went through the street.

"I suppose so, in a way."

"I wanted vindication. I wanted the people to know the truth."

"And they know it now. He goes free, but the people know he is a guilty man, and that your wife _lied_ to save him."

"Yes," said Baptiste a little wearily.

Somehow he felt relieved. It seemed that a great burden had been lifted from his mind, and he closed his eyes as if shutting out the past now forever. He was free. Never would the instance that had brought turmoil and strife into his life trouble him again. Always before there had seemed to be a peculiar bond between him and the woman he had taken as wife. Always he seemed to have a claim upon her in spite of all and she upon him. But, by the decision of the court, all this had been swept away, and he sighed as if in peace.