nature has gone by. This
witness has testified already, and to an entirely different set of
facts. I don't know what influences have been at work to induce her to
frame up a new story, but----"

"Your zeal is commendable, Mr. Prosecutor," said the judge, "but it must
not be allowed to obscure the human rights at hazard in this case. Let
the witness proceed."

Ollie shuddered like one entering cold water as she let her eyes take a
flight out over the crowd. Perhaps she saw something in it that appalled
her, or perhaps she realized only then that she was about to expose the
nakedness of her soul before the world.

"Go ahead, Mrs. Chase," prompted Hammer. "You say you know about that
sack of money?"

"I was taking it away with me," said she, drawing a long breath and
expelling it with an audible sigh.

She seemed very tired, and she looked most hopeless, pitiable, and
forlorn; still there was no wavering from the task that she had set for
herself, no shrinking from its pain. "I was going to meet Curtis Morgan,
the book-agent man that you've asked me about before. We intended to run
off to the city together. Joe knew about it; he stopped me that night."

She paused again, picking at her fingers nervously.

"You say that Joe stopped you--" Hammer began. She cut him off, taking
up her suspended narrative without spirit, as one resumes a burden.

"Yes, but let me tell you first." She looked frankly into Judge
Maxwell's eyes.

"Address the jury, Mrs. Chase," admonished Hammer. She turned and looked
steadily into the foreman's bearded face.

"There never was a thing out of the way between me and Joe. Joe never
made love to me; he never kissed me, he never seemed to want to. When
Curtis Morgan came to board with us I was about ready to die, I was so
tired and lonesome and starved for a kind word.

"Isom was a hard man--harder than anybody knows that never worked for
him. He worked me like I was only a plow or a hoe, without any feeling
or any heart. Morgan and me--Mr. Morgan, he--well, we fell in love. We
didn't act right, and Joe found it out. That was the day that Mr. Morgan
and I planned to run away together. He was coming back for me that
night."

"You say that you and Morgan didn't act right," said Hammer, not
satisfied with a statement that might leave the jurymen the labor of
conjecture. "Do you mean to say that there were improper relations
between you? that you were, in a word, unfaithful to your husband,