that you went to bed
early that night. Now, where was Joe Newbolt?"

"I guess he was in bed," answered Ollie, her lips white; "I didn't go to
see."

"No, you didn't go to see," repeated the prosecutor with significant
stress. "Very well. Where did your husband keep his money in the
house?"

"I don't know; I never saw any of it," Ollie answered.

The reply drew a little jiggling laugh from the crowd. It rose and died
even while Captain Taylor's knuckles were poised over the panel of the
door, and his loud rap fell too late for all, save one deep-chested
farmer in a far corner, who must have been a neighbor of old Isom. This
man's raucous mirth seemed a roar above the quiet of the packed room.
The prosecutor looked in his direction with a frown. The sheriff stood
up and peered over that way threateningly.

"Preserve order, Mr. Sheriff," said the judge severely.

The sheriff pounded the table with his hairy fist. "Now, I tell you I
don't want to hear no more of this!" said he.

The prosecutor was shaken out of his pose a bit by the court-room laugh.
There is nothing equal to a laugh for that, to one who is laboring to
impress his importance upon the world. It took him some time to get back
to his former degree of heat, skirmishing around with incidental
questioning. He looked over his notes, pausing. Then he faced Ollie
again quickly, leveling his finger like a pointer of direct accusation.

"Did Joe Newbolt ever make love to you?" he asked.

Joe's face flushed with resentful fire; but Ollie's white calm, forced
and strained that it was, remained unchanged.

"No, sir; he never did."

"Did he ever kiss you?"

"No, I tell you, he didn't!" Ollie answered, with a little show of
spirit.

Hammer rose with loud and voluble objections, which had, for the first
time during the proceedings, Joe's hearty indorsement. But the judge
waved him down, and the prosecutor pressed his new line of inquisition.

"You and Joe Newbolt were thrown together a good deal, weren't you, Mrs.
Chase--you were left there alone in the house while your husband was
away in the field, and other places, frequently?"

"No, not very much," said Ollie, shaking her head.

"But you had various opportunities for talking together alone, hadn't
you?"

"I never had a chance for anything but work," said Ollie wearily.

Unawed by the sheriff's warning, the assembly laughed again. The sound
ran over the room like a scudding cloud across a meadow, a