was Mrs. Chase?" he asked.

A little murmur, as of people drawing together with whispers; a little
soft scuffing of cautiously shifted feet on the carpet, followed the
question. Ollie shrank back, as if wincing from pain.

"Mrs. Chase was upstairs in her room," answered Joe.

The weight of a thousand centuries lifted from Ollie's body. Her vision
cleared. Her breath came back in measured flow to her lips, moist and
refreshing.

He had not told. He was standing between her and the sharp tongues of
those waiting people, already licking hungrily in their awakened
suspicion, ready to sear her fair name like flames. But there was no
gratitude in her heart that moment, no quick lifting of thankfulness nor
understanding of the great peril which Joe had assumed for her. There
was only relief, blessed, easing, cool relief. He had not told.

But the coroner was a persistent man. He was making more than an
investigation out of it; he was fairly turning it into a trial, with Joe
as the defendant. The people were ready to see that, and appreciate his
attempts to uncover the dark motive that lay behind this deed, of which
they were convinced, almost to a man, that Joe was guilty.

"Was Isom jealous of you?" asked the coroner, beginning the assault on
Joe's reserve suddenly again when it seemed that he was through. For the
first time during the inquiry Joe's voice was unsteady when he replied.

"He had no cause to be, and you've got no right to ask me that, either,
sir!" he said.

"Shame on you, shame on you!" said Mrs. Newbolt, leaning toward the
coroner, shaking her head reprovingly.

"I've got the right to ask you anything that I see fit and proper, young
man," the coroner rebuked him sternly.

"Well, maybe you have," granted Joe, drawing himself straight in the
chair.

"Did Isom Chase ever find you alone with his wife?" the coroner asked.

"Now you look here, sir, if you'll ask me questions that a gentleman
ought to ask, I'll answer you like a gentleman, but I'll never answer
such questions as that!"

There was a certain polite deference in Joe's voice, which he felt that
he owed, perhaps, to the office that the man represented, but there was
a firmness above it all that was unmistakable.

"You refuse to answer any more questions, then?" said the coroner
slowly, and with a significance that was almost sinister.

"I'll answer any proper questions you care to ask me," answered Joe.

"Very well, then. You say that