e
bars.

"The coroner asked me that," replied Joe, harshly.

This unyielding quality of his client was baffling to Hammer, who was of
the opinion that a good fatherly kick might break the crust of his
reserve. Hammer had guessed the answer according to his own thick
reasoning, and not very pellucid morals.

"Well, if you take the stand, Joe, they'll make you tell it then,"
Hammer warned him. "You'd better tell me in advance, so I can advise you
how much to say."

"I'll have to get on somehow without your advice, thank you sir, Mr.
Hammer, when it comes to how much to say," said Joe.

"There's not many lawyers--and I'll tell you that right now in a
perfectly plain and friendly way--that'd go ahead with your case under
the conditions," said Hammer. "But as I told you, I'll stick to you and
see you through. I wash my hands of any blame for the case, Joe, if it
don't turn out exactly the way you expect."

Joe saw him leave without regret, for Hammer's insistence seemed to him
inexcusably vulgar. All men could not be like him, reflected Joe, his
hope leaping forward to Judge Maxwell, whom he must soon confront.

Joe tossed the night through with his longing for Alice, which gnawed
him like hunger and would not yield to sleep, for in his dreams his
heart went out after her; he heard her voice caressing his name. He woke
with the feeling that he must put the thought of Alice away from him,
and frame in his mind what he should say when it came his turn to stand
before Judge Maxwell and tell his story. If by some hinted thing, some
shade of speech, some qualification which a gentleman would grasp and
understand, he might convey his reason to the judge, he felt that he
must come clear.

He pondered it a long time, and the face of the judge rose before him,
and the eyes were brown and the hair in soft wavelets above a white
forehead, and Alice stood in judgment over him. So it always ended; it
was before Alice that he must plead and justify himself. She was his
judge, his jury, and his world.

It was mid-afternoon when Mrs. Newbolt arrived for her last visit before
the trial. She came down to his door in her somber dress, tall, bony and
severe, thinner of face herself than she had been before, her eyes
bright with the affection for her boy which her tongue never put into
words. Her shoes were muddy, and the hem of her skirt draggled, for,
high as she had held it in her heavy tramp, it had become splashed by
the pools i