ho knows when to hold his tongue.

For two hours and more Sam Lucas kept hammering away at the stern
front of the defendant witness. He had expected to break him down,
simple-minded country lad that he supposed him to be, in a quarter of
that time, and draw from him the truth of the matter in every detail. It
was becoming evident that Joe was feeling the strain. The tiresome
repetition of the questions, the unvarying denial, the sudden sorties
of the prosecutor in attempt to surprise him, and the constant labor of
guarding against it--all this was heaping up into a terrific load.

Time and again Joe's eyes had gone to the magnet of Alice Price's face,
and always he had seen her looking straight at him--steadily,
understandingly, as if she read his purpose. He was satisfied that
she knew him to be innocent of that crime, as well as any of the
indiscretions with Ollie which the prosecutor had attempted to force
him to admit. If he could have been satisfied with that assurance
alone, his hour would have been blessed. But he looked for more in
every fleeting glance that his eyes could wing to her, and in the
turmoil of his mind he was unable to find that which he sought.

Sam Lucas, seeing that the witness was nearing the point of mental and
physical strain at which men go to pieces, and the vigil which they have
held above their secrets becomes open to surprise, hung to him with his
worriment of questions, scarcely granting him time to sigh.

Joe was pestered out of his calm and dignified attitude. He twisted in
his chair, where many a confounded and beset soul had writhed before
him, and ran his fingers through his long hair, disturbing it into
fantastic disorder. His breath came through his open lips, his shoulders
sagged wearily, his long back was bent as he drooped forward, whipping
his fagged mind to alertness, guarding every word now, weighing every
answer a deliberate while. Sweat drenched his face and dampened the
thick wisps of hair. He scooped the welling moisture from his forehead
with his crooked finger and flung it to the floor with a rustic trick of
the fields.

Sam Lucas gave him no respite. Moment by moment he pressed the panting
race harder, faster; moment by moment he grew more exacting, imperative
and pressing in his demands for unhesitating replies. While he harassed
and urged the sweating victim, the prosecutor's eyes narrowed, his thin
lips pressed hard against his teeth. The moment was approachin