andkerchief, and squared himself as if about to try a high hurdle or
plunge away in a race.

"Joseph Newbolt, take the witness-chair," said he.

CHAPTER XVIII

A NAME AND A MESSAGE

When Hammer called his name, Joe felt a revival of his old desire to go
to the witness-chair and tell Judge Maxwell all about it in his own way,
untenable and dangerous as his position had appeared to him in his hours
of depression. Now the sheriff released his arm, and he went forward
eagerly. He held up his hand solemnly while the clerk administered the
oath, then took his place in the witness-chair. Ollie's face was the
first one that his eyes found in the crowd.

It seemed as if a strong light had been focused upon it, leaving the
rest of the house in gloom. The shrinking appeal which lay in her eyes
moved him to pity. He strove to make her understand that the cunning of
the sharpest lawyer could set no trap which would surprise her secret
from him, nor death itself display terrors to frighten it out of his
heart.

It seemed that a sunbeam broke in the room then, but perhaps it was only
the clearing away of doubt and vacillation from his mind, with the
respectable feeling that he had regained all the nobility which was
slipping from him, and had come back to a firm understanding with
himself.

And there was Alice, a little nearer to the bar than he had expected to
see her. Her face seemed strained and anxious, but he could not tell
whether her sympathy was dearer, her feeling softer for him in that hour
than it would have been for any other man. Colonel Price had yielded his
seat to a woman, and now he stood at the back of the room in front of
the inner door as a privileged person, beside Captain Taylor.

Mrs. Newbolt sat straight-backed and expectant, her hand on the back of
Joe's empty chair, while the eager people strained forward to possess
themselves of the sensation which they felt must soon be loosed among
them.

Joe's hair had grown long during his confinement. He had smoothed it
back from his forehead and tucked it behind his ears. The length of it,
the profusion, sharpened the thinness of his face; the depth of its
blackness drew out his pallor until he seemed all bloodless and cold.

Three inches of great, bony arm showed below his coat sleeves; that
spare garment buttoned across his chest, strained at its seams. Joe wore
the boots which he had on when they arrested him, scarred and work-worn
by the stubbl