in the purpose of his visit to
her.

"I'm ready to go," announced Ollie, hooded and cloaked in the door.

Sim Harrison was stirring about overhead. He came to the top of the
stairs with a lamp in his hand, and wanted to know what the rumpus was
about.

"It's Judge Maxwell--he's come for Ollie!" said his wife, in a
despairing wail.

"I knowed it, I knowed it!" declared Sim, with fatalistic resignation,
above which there was perhaps a slight note of triumph in seeing his own
prediction so speedily fulfilled.

To Harrison and his wife there was no distinction between the executive
and judicial branches of the law. Judge or sheriff, it was all one to
them, each being equally terrible in their eyes.

"When can she come home, Judge, when can she come back?" appealed Mrs.
Harrison, in anguished pleading.

"It rests with her," returned the judge.

He gave Ollie his arm, and they passed together in silence up the
street. They had proceeded a square before the judge spoke.

"I am calling you on an unusual mission, Mrs. Chase," he said, "but I
did not know a better way than this to go about what I felt it my duty
to do."

"Yes, sir," said she. He could feel her tremble as she lightly touched
his arm.

They passed the court-house. There was a light in the sheriff's office,
but they did not turn in there, and a sigh for that temporary respite,
at least, escaped her. The judge spoke again.

"You left the court-room today before I had a chance to speak to you,
Mrs. Chase. I wanted to tell you how much I admired your courage in
coming forward with the statement that cleared away the doubt and
tangles from Joe Newbolt's case. You deserve a great deal of credit,
which I am certain the public will not withhold. You are a brave little
woman, Ollie Chase."

There it was again! Twice in a day she had heard it, from eminent
sources each time. The world was not a bleak desert, as she had thought,
but a place of kindness and of gentle hearts.

"I'm glad you don't blame me," she faltered, not knowing what to make of
this unexpected turn in the night's adventure.

"A brave little woman!" repeated the judge feelingly. "And I want you to
know that I respect and admire you for what you have done."

Ollie was silent, but her heart was shouting, leaping, and bounding
again in light freedom, as it had lifted that morning when Alice Price
had spoken to her in her despair. At last, she said, with earnestness:

"I promise you I'll b