rds of which came back to him now. The Songs of Songs,
Which is Solomon's.

Ah, the Song of Songs! The music of it now was written in his heart. It
was not the song in glorification and exaltation of the church that the
translators had captioned it; not a song full of earthly symbols meant
to represent spiritual passions. Joe had read it, time and again, in
that application, and it had fallen flavorless upon his understanding.
No; it was the song of a strong man to the woman whom he loved.

And the music of it, old but ever new in its human appeal, now was
written in his heart.

Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely. Thou
art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.... Until the day break,
and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved....

Ah, until the day break!

In his rapt exaltation the boy's face beamed as he strode swiftly the
length of his cell. It would not be long until daybreak now. The judge
would understand him, and would not press a man to tell what he had
delicate reasons for concealing, when the concealment could bring harm
to nobody, but boundless good to one weak creature who must wither
otherwise in the blaze of shame.

He remembered the strong face and the long iron-gray hair of Judge
Maxwell; only a little while ago Joe had given him some apples which he
had stopped to admire as he drove past Isom's orchard in his sagging,
mud-splashed, old buggy. He was a good man; the uprightness of his life
spoke from his face. Judge Maxwell was a man to understand.

Poor Ollie; poor weak, shrinking Ollie! Her frightened eyes glowed hot
in his memory of the day of the inquest, carrying to him their appeal.
Poor, mistaken, unguided Ollie! He would protect her to the last, as he
had done at the beginning, and trust and hope that the judge, and Alice,
and the colonel, and the whole world, would understand in due and proper
time.

CHAPTER XIV

DESERTED

John Owens, the surviving witness to Isom Chase's will, spent his dreary
days at the poorhouse whittling long chains of interlocking rings, and
fantastic creatures such as the human eye never beheld in nature, out of
soft pine-wood. He had taken up that diversion shortly after the last of
his afflictions, blindness, fell upon him and, as white pine was cheap,
the superintendent of the institution indulged him without stint.

Uncle John, as he was called long years before the hard-riding world
threw him, was a preacher