"Dear girl!" murmured Aurora Lane, patting her on the shoulder. "Ah, you
sweet girl! If you could only just remain always this young and
wise--and ignorant!"

But Anne Oglesby seemed not to hear her. She was looking out of the
window musingly now, her yellow-gloved hands supported on her
tight-rolled umbrella, her hat making a half-shadow for her dark hair
and her clear, definite features.

Now the red sun ball, having well completed its circuit over the parched
and breathless town, was sinking to yet another lurid sunset. There lay
over all a blanket of that humid heat which so often arrests activity in
communities such as this, situated in the interior, where few cooling
breezes come. The dry, dust-covered leaves of the maples hung unmoved.
Here and there, still hitched to the iron piping which served as a rail
on all sides of the courthouse fence, stood the teams of farmers still
tarrying, unwilling to face the hot ride home from town, even though the
duty of church attendance was long since past. A murder and a funeral--a
Knights Templar funeral--Spring Valley had never known the like! And
there was going to be a trial--a murder trial. Court would sit tomorrow.
What village could ask more than was the portion of Spring Valley in
these few hurrying days? And it was her boy, 'Rory Lane's; and she'd
fooled everybody--but now----! Spring Valley licked its chops as it said
"But now----"

The two women in Judge Henderson's office sat still in the sultry heat,
looking out of the window over the sultry, sordid, solemn little town;
how long they did not know; until now there came again across the
heat-hazy spaces of the maples, over the hot tops of the two-storied
brick buildings, the sound of the wailing music--the same music which
may come from the noblest organs of the world, the same music which may
have pealed on fields of battle after heroes have fallen, speaking, as
music may, of a soul passed, of a life ended, so soon to be forgot. For
a time let the wailing of the horns, the tapping even of these unskilled
drums, record the duty of this man's fellows to give him at least a
moment's full remembrance.

In this hot lifeless air of the somber Sabbath afternoon the burden of
sorrow, the weight of solemnity, seemed yet heavier and more oppressive.
If a soldier dies the music plays some lilting air which speaks
forgetfulness on the march home; but now, for the second time came this
reiterated mournful wailing for a pa