Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1917-06-26

The oldest judge mumbled something,
everybody stood up, and the three stiff,
formidable figures filed out by side
door. 1t was all over.
| But nothing had happened!
Rose had expected to leave the
! courtroom in the bliSsful knowledge
of Rodney's victory or the acceptance
of his defeat. In her surprise over the
| failure of this climax to materialize,
she almost neglected to make her es-
cape before he discovered her there.
One practical advantage she had
| gained out of what was, on the whole,
a Observation-Disclosures afternoon. When
she had gone home and changed into
the sort of frock she thought he'd like
and come downstairs in answer to his
shouted greeting from the lower hall,
she didn't say as otherwise she would
have done, "How did it come out
Roddy? Did you VIM"
In the light of her newly acquired
knowledge she could see how question
of that sort would irritate him. In
| stead of that, she said: You dear old
boy, how dog-tired you must be How
do you think it went? Do you think
you impressed them? / bet you did :"
| And, not having been rubbed the
wrong way by a foolish question, he
| held her off with both hands for a
moment, then Rugged. her up and told
her she was a trump. 81 had sort
of uneasy feeling" he confessed, that
after last night-the way threw you
out of my Office. fairly, I'd find you
tragic. l might have known I could
count on you. Is there anywhere
we have got to go? Or can we just
| stay homer"
He didn't want to founder through
an emotional morass. And the as
sumption that she couldn't walk beside
him on the main path of his life was
just and sensible But it wasn't good
enough for Rose.
So the very next morning she strip
ped the cover off the first of the law
books she had bought, and really went
| TO work. She bit down, angrily, the
yawns that blinded her eyes with tears
| she made desperate efforts to fog her
mind into graphing with the endless
succession of meaningless pages
spread out before her, to find a germ
of meaning somewhere in it that would
| bring the dead verbiage to life. She
was very secretive about it; developed
an almost morbid fear that Rodney
would discover what she was doing
and laugh his big laugh at her. She
resisted innumerabke questions she
wanted to PROFOUND to him, from a
fear that they'd betray her secret.
She even forbore to ask him about
the case; it was The Case in her mind
the one she knew about
She discovered In the newspaper
one day, column summary of court
and though The Case wasn't in it, she
kept, from that day forward, careful
watch, discovered where the legal news
was printed, and never overlooked a
paragraph. And at last she found
| it-just the bare statement: "Judg-
/ tuSul auuIucO. hOulleg, she hucNr
had represented the appellant He
was beaten.
For a moment the thing had bruised
/ her like blow. And then, all at once,
in the indrawing of a single breath,
she saw it differently. She saw she
couldn't help him out of his inteilec
| tual quandaries-yet. But under the
| encouragement and lassitude of de-
feat. couldn't she help him? She re-
membered how many times she had
gone 10 him for help like that, and.
most notably, during the three or four
days of an acute illness of her moth
er's, when she had been brought face
TO face with the monstrous, incredible
possibility of losing her, how she had
chung to him, how his tenderness, had
s1othed and quieted her.
He had never come TO her Ike that.
She knew now it was thing she mad
unconsciousIy longed for. And to-
Z night she'd have chancei There was
mounting excitement in her, as the
I hours pasSed-a thrilling suspense.