ratulated and dismissed the prisoner.
Then counsel and friends gathered about Nate with outstretched hands,
till his arm ached with the constant pumping, and his tongue was tied
with the excitement and confusion. To steady himself he kept his eyes
mostly on a little black figure, some distance away. It was close by the
side of Miss Lavillotte, but its face never turned from watching him;
and he knew that, from the hour the young girl had stood bravely in
court and exonerated him from all blame, she had put the sad past behind
her and accepted a brighter, happier future. He was only longing, now,
to reach her side, but even with Dalton's efforts it was almost
impossible to make their way through the press. Somehow, Nate's friends
seemed to spring up from everywhere, to-day. Each official, from jailer
to judge, had learned to like him, the newspaper men were his staunch
allies, and the jurors had a fellow-feeling for him.

He had clung to the clean, unvarnished truth in dogged fashion, and had
so impressed all by his simple story, in which he seemed only trying to
tell facts, no matter how they bore upon himself, that even the
prosecutor was out of conceit with his side of the case.

So the gratulatory crowd gathered thickly about him, and the little
group of home-friends had to wait long before he could reach them, near
the private door by the clerk's desk.

Lucy, trembling all over, caught his hand as soon as she could reach it,
and fairly pulled him from the court-room. "Let's get out of this!" she
whispered excitedly. "I can't breathe here. Oh, Nate, to think you are
safe and it's all over. Thank God! Thank God!"

"Come," said Dalton to Joyce, who stood hesitantly, not sure there was
no more to attend to, "the carriage is below and we've just time to make
our train. We can say all our says in there."

He took Joyce's arm with an odd mixture of tenderness, deference, and
authority, while the others followed their rapid pace. Once inside the
closed vehicle, Nate seemed less excited than any of them, speaking in
the same slow, even tones he always used. When Lucy, clinging to his
hand, would break out, "Oh, isn't it good--isn't it too good, Nate?" he
would only smile and look down at her with a tender,

"Why, yes, Lucy, it's good, but not too good, as I see. It's right,
that's all. I didn't need shutting up, and I'm glad I didn't get
sentenced that way. 'Twould 'a' come tough on you and the youngsters."

"I expect