on beyond and back of this was a soft, gray,
vague light, the light of creation itself, of the dawn, of the birth of
time. Perhaps some would have said it was the light shining down through
the courthouse hall from the farther open door. Who would deny poor
little Miss Julia her splendid dreams?

For Miss Julia was very, very happy. She had found how the world was
made and why it was made. And mighty few wise men ever have learned so
much as that.

She searched for the father of her first-born--a man tall and splendid
and beautiful--a man strong and just and noble. Such only might be the
father of her boy.... And she met him at the door of the county
treasurer's office, his silk hat slightly rumpled on one side.

"Oh!" she cried, and started back.

She had only been thinking. But here he was. This was proof to Miss
Julia's mind that God actually does engage in our daily lives. For here
he was!

Now she could bring father and son together; and that would correlate
this world of question and doubt with that world of the star dust and
the whirling nebulae.

"Miss Julia!" The judge stopped, suddenly embarrassed. He flushed, which
was all the better, for he had been ashen pale.

"Oh, I'm so glad!" she exclaimed. "I was looking for you, all over. I
was at your office, but did not find you. Of course you have heard?"

"Heard? No, what was it?"

"Why, the death of Johnnie Adamson--it was the sheriff, just now--Dan
Cowles shot him, right in front of Aurora Lane's house. He must have
been trying to break in or something. His father was there."

"Why, great heavens!--what are you telling me? The sheriff shot him?
Where is Cowles? I must see him."

"He's here in the courthouse now, they say. But it's all over now. Where
have you been? I was going over to Aurora's house early this morning,
but Mr. Brooks came in. I must go over at once----"

"Come this way, Miss Julia," he interrupted.

He led her into the room he had just left. Racked as he was himself, he
knew it would be too cruel an unkindness to tell Miss Julia now of what
had befallen Aurora Lane the night before.

"The reason I came to you first," said Miss Julia--"before I went to
Aurora--was about the boy--about Don. You see, he confessed--the
half-wit did--before he was killed. The sheriff and others and his own
father heard him say that he had killed Tarbush, don't you see? He'd
gone wild, don't you see--he was a maniac. It was a madman killed
Tarbush.