of court," said
he.

Joe rose slowly to his feet. The sheriff, perhaps thinking that he
designed making a dash for liberty, or to throw himself out of a window,
rushed forward in official zeal. The judge, studying Joe's face
narrowly, waved the officer back. Joe lifted a hand to his forehead in
thoughtful gesture and stroked back his hair, standing thus in studious
pose a little while. A thousand eyes were bent upon him; five hundred
palpitating brains were aching for the relief of his reply. Joe lifted
his head and turned solemnly to the judge.

"I can't answer the prosecuting attorney's question, sir," he said. "I'm
ready to be taken back to jail."

The jurors had been leaning out of their places to listen, the older
ones with hands cupped to their ears. Now they settled back with
disappointed faces, some of them shaking their heads in depreciation of
such stubbornness.

"You are making a point of honor of it?" said the judge, sharply but not
unkindly, looking over his glasses at the raw citadel of virtue which
rose towerlike before him.

"If you will forgive me, sir, I have no more to say," said Joe, a
flitting shadow, as of pain, passing over his face.

"Sit down," said the judge.

The prosecutor, all on fire from his smothered attempt to uncover the
information which he believed himself so nearly in possession of,
started to say something, and Hammer got the first syllable of his
objection out of his mouth, when the judge waved both of them down. He
turned in his chair to Joe, who was waiting calmly now the next event.

Judge Maxwell addressed him again. He pointed out to Joe that, since he
had taken the witness-stand, he had thus professed his willingness to
lay bare all his knowledge of the tragedy, and that his reservation was
an indication of insincerity. The one way in which he could have
withheld information not of a self-incriminating nature, was for him to
have kept off the stand. He showed Joe that one could not come forward
under such circumstances and tell one side of a story, or a part of it,
confessing at the same time that certain pertinent information was
reserved.

"No matter who it hurts, it is your duty now to reveal the cause of your
quarrel between yourself and Isom Chase that night, and to repeat, to
the best of your recollection, the words which passed between you."

He explained that, unless Joe should answer the question, it was the one
duty of the court to halt the trial there