and took the same seat under the judge's bench which she had occupied the previous day. She was anxious to avoid as far as possible those cruelly curious eyes that had come to gloat over her husband's fate. She hardly raised her eyes to greet Kendall and his assistant when they arrived. For Dudley, escorted in by the bailiff, she summoned a warm smile which she was pathetically anxious to make reassuring. He responded and pressed her hand.
Dudley scanned the front row on the other side of the rail and turned uneasily to Kendall.
"My uncle is not here to-day?" He was disappointed. He felt that he would need Sanford Drake's cool head and good sense—for Carmelita, if not for himself—before that day was over.
"I haven't seen him," Kendall replied. "He'll be along presently, I fancy." But Sanford Drake did not appear, and his absence filled Dudley with a vague unrest. Had the financier deemed discretion the better part of valor and deserted the sinking ship while there was yet time? No; there was some more honorable explanation than that. Dudley was sure of it.
The courtroom rose as the red-faced Judge McIntyre, who hoped the trial would be over
