am sure," he said, "I have never heard any weeping or wailing that I
have been aware of, and really I hope to be pardoned, but the burden
that you speak of has failed to make itself felt."

"Well, you will hear it some day. Even legal, licensed murder will have
its reckoning time. You will see a face some day; you will hear a voice
that will haunt you like the wail of a lost soul."

Mr. Allison shrugged his shoulders as if in apprehension.

"I hope not," he said; "but Miss Thorn, I am afraid you do not enjoy the
society of a liquor dealer."

"On general principles, no. And yet I have enjoyed yours very much this
afternoon, you may be sure. I thank you for it, and--I am sorry that you
are a 'man atom' of the great iniquity."

"I am sorry that you are sorry," he answered, and then the Thorn
homestead rose in view.

"I never was so frightened in my life," Jean said, as they drove in
front of the gate. "It seems that no one is safe from insult and injury
in a land where liquor is a legalized drink. I never thought that I
should fall a victim to it."

"Or be rescued by a liquor dealer."

"That is true," and Jean laughed merrily.

Then she thanked him again, and for half a minute he held her small,
gloved hand in his, as he assisted her from the buggy.

"It is I who am grateful that Fate allowed me to be the knight." Then he
lifted his hat gallantly, and Jean was gone, but her parting smile
stayed with him.

CHAPTER VII.

THE JUDGE MAKES A DISCOVERY.

After the adventure at the army post Mr. Allison called not infrequently
at the home of the Thorns, and though, of course, cordially received by
both Jean and her father, nearly always succeeded in leaving Jean
thoroughly vexed with him. She made speeches and drew statistics for
him, enough in strength and numbers to convert the traffic itself, and
was generally rewarded for her pains by an amused look and a
good-natured laugh. He seemed to her to be asleep, sound asleep; and try
as best she might, it seemed impossible to awaken him; and yet she
looked for his visits and enjoyed the task she had set herself about
more than she would have cared to admit.

The fact was, Mr. Allison had been born asleep as far as his relation
with the liquor question was concerned. From his father he inherited his
interest in the business firm of which he was the junior member, and
having been brought up in this atmosphere, he neither knew nor cared for
any other. A man po