and white, staring
at her with frightful truth, harrowed the very soul of her. A sobbing
outburst from Bobbie mingled with the soft chug, chug of the engine
outside on the track. Happy Pete, too, felt the tragedy in the air. He
wriggled nearer his young mistress and rested his pointed nose on one
of her knees, while his twinkling yellow eyes demanded, in their
eloquent way, to know the cause of his loved ones' sorrow.

Peggy broke a painful pause.

"Everybody in town says Lafe done it," she groaned, "an'----" she
caught her breath. "Oh, God! it seems I can't stand it much longer!"

Jinnie got up, putting the limp boy in her chair. She was making a
masterful effort to be brave, to restrain the rush of emotion
demanding utterance. Some beating thing in her side ached as if it
were about to burst. But she stood still until Peg spoke again.

"It's all bad business, Jinnie! an' I can't see no help comin' from
anywhere."

If Peg's head hadn't fallen suddenly into her hands, perhaps Jinnie
wouldn't have collapsed just then. As it was, her knees gave way, and
she fell forward beside the cobbler's wife. Bobbie, in his helpless
way, knelt too.

Since Lafe's arrest the girl had not prayed, nor could she recall the
promises Lafe had taught her were made for the troubled in spirit.
Could she now say anything to make Peg's suffering less, even if she
did not believe it all herself?

"Peg," she pleaded, "don't shiver so!... Hold up your head.... I want
to tell you something."

Peggy made a negative gesture.

"It ain't to be bore, Jinnie," she moaned hoarsely.

"Lafe ain't no chance. They'll put him in the chair."

Such awful words! The import was pressed deeper into two young hearts
by Peg's wild weeping.

Jinnie staggered to her feet. Blind Bobbie broke into a prolonged
wail.

"Lafe ain't never done nothin' bad in all his life," went on the
woman, from the shelter of her hands. "He's the best man in the world.
He's worked an' worked for everybody, an' most times never got no pay.
An' now----"

"Don't say it again, Peggy!" Jinnie's voice rang out. "Don't think
such things. They couldn't put Lafe in a wicked death chair--they
_couldn't_."

Bobbie's upraised eyes were trying to pierce through their veil of
darkness to seek the speaker's meaning.

"What chair, Jinnie?" he quivered. "What kind of a chair're they goin'
to put my beautiful Lafe in?"

Jinnie's mind went back to the teachings of the cobbler, and the sl