Then it stood still, as a wave might hang for an instant at its crest ere it swept down to beat upon the shore.
With her as with most present, the deepest feeling in the agitated suspense was not so much that the prisoner should go free, as that the prisoner's counsel should win his case.

It was as if Charley Steele were on trial instead of the prisoner.

He was the imminent figure; it was his fate that was in the balance--such was the antic irony of suggestion.
And the truth was, that the fates of both prisoner and counsel had been weighed in the balance that sweltering August day.
The prisoner was forgotten almost as soon as he had left the court-room a free man, but wherever men and women met in Montreal that day, one name was on the lips of all-Charley Steele! In his speech he had done two things: he had thrown down every barrier of reserve--or so it seemed--and had become human and intimate.

"I could not have believed it of him," was the remark on every lip.

Of his ability there never had been a moment's doubt, but it had ever been an uncomfortable ability, it had tortured foes and made friends anxious.