ort and sharp:

"The Ku-Klux commands but never explains. What it commands now is for
Judge Hawkins to come forth. If he shrinks or delays his house will be
entered and burnt; but if he will come out and meet like a man what
awaits him, his house shall go free and his family remain unmolested."

"And what is it that awaits him?" pursued the voice.

"Four bullets from four unerring rifles," returned the captain.

"It is well; he will come forth," cried the voice, and then in a
huskier tone: "Let me kiss the woman I love. I will not keep you
long."

And the captain answered nothing, only counted out clearly and
steadily, "One--two--three," up to a hundred, then he paused, turned,
and lifted his hand; when instantly our four rifles rose, and at the
same moment the door, with a faint grating sound I shall never forget,
slowly opened and the firm, unshrinking figure of the Judge appeared.

We did not delay. One simultaneous burst of fire, one loud quick
crack, and his figure fell before our eyes. A sound, a cry from
within, then all was still, and the captain, mounting his horse, gave
one quick whistle and galloped away. We followed him, but I was the
last to mount, and did not follow long; for at the flash of those guns
I had seen a smile cross our victim's lip, and my heart was on fire,
and I could not rest till I had found my way back to that open doorway
and the figure lying within it.

There it was, and behind it a house empty as my heart has been since
that day. A man's dress covering a woman's form--and over the
motionless, perfect features, that same smile which I had seen in the
room beyond and again in the quick glare of the rifles.

I had harbored no evil thought concerning her, but when I beheld that
smile now sealed and fixed upon her lips, I found the soul I had never
known I possessed until that day.

A MYSTERIOUS CASE.

It was a mystery to me, but not to the other doctors. They took, as
was natural, the worst possible view of the matter, and accepted the
only solution which the facts seem to warrant. But they are men, and I
am a woman; besides, I knew the nurse well, and I could not believe
her capable of wilful deceit, much less of the heinous crime which
deceit in this case involved. So to me the affair was a mystery.

The facts were these:

My patient, a young typewriter, seemingly without friends or enemies,
lay in a small room of a boarding-house, afflicted with a painful but
not d