pping and falling
down, revealing her white dress, and Mrs. Greening kept adjusting it
with motherly hand. Sitting bent, like an old woman, Ollie twisted and
wound her nervous hot fingers in her lap. Now and then she lifted her
eyes to Joe's, as if struggling to read what intention lay behind the
pale calm of his face.

No wonder she looked at him wild and fearful, people said. It was more
than anybody could understand, that sudden development of fierce passion
and treachery in a boy who always had been so shy and steady. No wonder
she gazed at him that way, poor thing!

Of course they did not dream how far they were from interpreting that
look in the young widow's eyes. There was one question in her life that
morning, and one only, it seemed. It stood in front of the future and
blocked all thought of it like a heavy door. Over and over it revolved
in her mind. It was written in fire in her aching brain.

When they put Joe Newbolt on the witness-stand and asked him how it
happened, would he stand true to his first intention and protect her, or
would he betray it all?

That was what troubled Ollie. She did not know, and in his face there
was no answer.

Sol Greening was the first witness. He told again to the jury of his
neighbors the story which he had gone over a score of times that
morning. Mrs. Newbolt nodded when he related what Joe had told him, as
if to say there was no doubt about that; Joe had told her the same
thing. It was true.

The coroner, a quick, sharp little man with a beard of unnatural
blackness, thick eyebrows and sleek hair, helped him along with a
question now and then.

"There was nobody in the room but Joe Newbolt when you arrived?"

"Nobody else--no livin' body," replied Sol.

"No other living body. And Joe Newbolt was standing beside the body of
Isom Chase, near the head, you say?"

"Yes, near Isom's head."

"With his hat in his hand, as if he had just entered the room, or was
about to leave it?"

Sol nodded.

"Do you know anything about a man who had been boarding here the past
week or two?"

The coroner seemed to ask this as an afterthought.

"Morgan," said Sol, crossing his legs the other way for relief. "Yes, I
knowed him."

"Did you see him here last night?"

"No, he wasn't here. The old lady said he stopped in at our house
yesterday morning to sell me a ready-reckoner."

Sol chuckled, perhaps over what he considered a narrow escape.

"I was over at Shelbyville, o