llie weighed
against his mother; Ollie, the tainted, the unclean.

His eyes found Ollie's as he coupled her name with his mother's in his
mind. She was shrinking against her mother's shoulder--she had a mother,
too--pale and afraid.

Mrs. Newbolt stretched out her hands. The scars of her toilsome years
were upon them; the distortion of the labor she had wrought for him in
his helpless infancy was set upon their joints. He was placing his
liberty and his life in jeopardy for Ollie, and his going would leave
mother without a stay, after her sacrifice of youth and hope and
strength for him.

Why should he be called upon to do this thing--why, _why_?

The question was a wild cry within his breast, lunging like a wolf in a
leash to burst his lips. His mother drew a step nearer, unstayed by the
sheriff, unchecked by the judge. She spread her poor hands in
supplication; the tears coursed down her brown old cheeks.

"Oh, my son, my son--my little son!" she said.

He saw her dimly now, for tears answered her tears. All was silent in
that room, the silence of the forest before the hurricane grasps it and
bends it, and the lightnings reave its limbs.

"Mother," said he chokingly, "I--I don't know what to do!"

"Tell it all, Joe!" she pleaded. "Oh, tell it all--tell it all!"

Her voice was little louder than a whisper, yet it was heard by every
mother in that room. It struck down into their hearts with a sharp,
riving stab of sympathy, which nothing but sobs would relieve.

Men clamped their teeth and gazed straight ahead at the moving scene,
unashamed of the tears which rolled across their cheeks and threaded
down their beards; the prosecutor, leaning on his hands, bent forward
and waited.

Joe's mind was in a tornado. The debris of past resolutions was flung
high, and swirled and dashed in a wild tumult. There was nothing
tangible in his reasoning, nothing plain in his sight. A mist was before
his eyes, a fog was over his reason. Only there was mother, with those
soul-born tears upon her face. It seemed to him then that his first and
his most sacred duty was to her.

The seconds were as hours. The low moaning of women sounded in the room.
Somebody moved a foot, scraping it in rude dissonance across the floor.
A girl's voice broke out in sudden sobbing, which was as quickly
stifled, with sharp catching of the breath.

Judge Maxwell moved in his chair, turning slowly toward the witness, and
silence fell.

They wer