"I hope that my reading of the poem didn't start you off."

"Oh, no, that had nothing to do with it--relieved me, if anything; set
me to thinking that some one else had been in the same fix. By the way,
a telegraph operator here brings me something nearly every day. Says
that he's a life-long friend of yours. Told me to tell you that he was
about to pick up a piece of calico and take it home with him--said that
you would understand. Now, you go on home and stay there until the
trial. You have almost worn yourself out. You and the General are still
on good terms, I suppose. Wish you could slip over there and see Millie.
Do you know what Chyd's waiting for? He's waiting to see how the trial
goes. Bill, I'm beginning to feel sorry for Stuart. But his face doesn't
come up before me at night with a death-look. There's a good deal of
nonsense about that sort of thing. When I see him he's always sitting on
his horse, cursing me. And that's not very pleasant. Go on, Bill. I have
kept you too long. It's nearly night."

Old man Jucklin was smartly encouraged when I told him what the ex-judge
had said, and he related a number of anecdotes of the old fellow's early
days on the circuit.

"Oh, help is comin' our way," old Limuel said, and his wife, pointing to
her book, replied: "It has always been with us."

"At the stake," he whispered.

I did not speak of having seen Chyd. I had no right to do so, for I
knew that he was now an additional distress. But the next morning when
Guinea and I were alone at the breakfast table she asked me if I had not
met him down the road--said that she had seen him crossing the meadows
with his dogs. I began to quibble and she spoke up spiritedly: "Oh, you
shouldn't hesitate to tell me. It amounts to nothing, I'm sure."

"I must manage some way to see Millie," I remarked, determined to say no
more about Chyd lest I should lose my temper.

"I hope you won't go to the house," she replied, her face coloring.

"I won't, but I didn't know but that I might see her going to a
neighbor's house and then----"

"No," she broke in, "I hope you won't even do that. She must know how we
feel, and if she had any interest in us she would come over here. No, I
won't say that. I don't know what she may have to contend with. But her
brother could come if he wanted to, but it makes no difference, I'm
sure."

"Suppose I meet Millie in the road; shall I speak to her?"

"Surely, but don't ask her why she hasn'