lloway County.

"You've made your point, Hosie," said Jim Nichols. "They'll listen to
her now."

Katherine stepped forward into the space Old Hosie had involuntarily
vacated. With the torchlights flaring up into her face she stood there
breathing deeply, awed into momentary silence by the great crowd and
by the responsibility that weighed upon her.

"If, as Mr. Hollingsworth has said," she began in a tremulous but
clear voice that carried to the farthest confines of the lawn, "you
owe me anything, all I ask in return is that you refrain from mob
violence;" and she went on to urge upon them the lawful course. The
crowd, taken aback by the accusations and revelations Old Hosie had
flung so hotly into their faces, strangely held by her impassioned
woman's figure pedestalled above them on the porch, listened to her
with an attention and respect which they as yet were far from
understanding.

She felt that she had won her audience, that she had turned them
back to lawful measures, when suddenly there was a roar of "Blake!
Blake!"--the stilled crowd became again a mob--and she saw that the
focus of their gaze had shifted from her to a point behind her.
Looking about, she saw that the door had opened, and that Blake,
pale and erect, was standing in the doorway. The crowd tried to
surge forward, but the front ranks, out of their new and but
half-comprehended respect for Katherine, stood like a wall against the
charge that would have overwhelmed her.

Blake moved forward to her side.

"I should like to speak to them, if I can," he said quietly.

Katherine held up her hand for silence. The mob hissed and cursed him,
and tried to break through the human fortification of the front ranks.
Through it all Blake stood silent, pale, without motion. Katherine,
her hand still upraised, continued to cry out for silence; and after a
time the uproar began in a measure to diminish.

Katherine took quick advantage of the lull.

"Gentlemen," she called out, "won't you please give Mr. Blake just a
word!"

Cries that they should give him a chance to speak ran through
the crowd, and thus abjured by its own members the mob quieted
yet further. While they were subsiding into order Blake looked
steadily out upon this sea of hostile faces. Katherine watched him
breathlessly, wondering what he was about to say. It swept in upon
her, with a sudden catching of the throat, that he made a fine figure
standing there so straight, so white, with