His thought was of Marette, of the fate which dawn and discovery would bring for her.

His hands clenched and his jaws tightened.

The world was against him, and tomorrow it would be against her.

Only he, in the face of all that condemning evidence in the room beyond, would disbelieve her guilty of Kedsty's death.

And he, Jim Kent, was already a murderer in the eyes of the law.
He felt within him the slow-growing inspiration of a new spirit, the gathering might of a new force.