ucceeded
in being civil, for his heart was not with them in what he felt to be
nothing but a cheap emotion. He was looking over their heads, and
peering between their shoulders, watching the progress of a little red
feather in a Highland bonnet, which was making its way toward him
through the confusion like a bold pennant upon the crest of battle. Joe
pushed through the wedging mass of people around, and went to the bar to
meet her.

In the time of his distress, these who now clamored around him with
professions of friendliness had not held up a hand to sustain him, nor
given him one good word to shore up his sinking soul. But there was one
who had known and understood; one whose faith had held him up to the
heights of honor, and his soul stood in his eyes to greet her as he
waited for her to come. He did not know what he would say when hand
touched hand, but he felt that he could fall down upon his knees as a
subject sinks before a queen.

Behind him he heard his mother's voice, thanking the people who offered
their congratulations. It was a great day for her when the foremost
citizens of the county came forward, their hats in their hands, to pay
their respects to her Joe. She felt that he was rising up to his place
at last, and coming into his own.

Joe heard his mother's voice, but it was sound to him now without words.
Alice was coming. She was now just a little way beyond the reach of his
arm, and her presence filled the world.

The people had their quick eyes on Alice, also, and they fell apart to
let her pass, the flame of a new expectation in their keen faces. After
yesterday's strange act, which seemed so prophetic of today's climax in
the case, what was she going to do? Joe wondered in his heart with them;
he trembled in his eagerness to know.

She was now at the last row of benches, not five feet distant from him,
where she stood a second, while she looked up into his face and smiled,
lifting her hand in a little expressive gesture. Then she turned aside
to the place where Ollie Chase sat, shame-stricken and stunned, beside
her mother.

The women who had been sitting near Ollie had withdrawn from her, as if
she had become unclean with her confession. And now, as Alice
approached, Ollie's mother gave her a hard, resentful look, and put her
arm about her daughter as if to protect her from any physical
indignities which Alice might be bent on offering.

Ollie shrank against her mother, her hair bright a