The lawyer stopped in his harangue and turned in time to see Ralph lying in a heap on the floor, just as he had slipped that moment from his chair. The boy had listened to Goodlaw's praises of his conduct with a vague feeling that he was undeserving of so much credit for it. But when Sharpman, advancing in his speech, charged him with having dreamed his story, he was astounded. He thought it was the strangest thing he had ever heard of. For was not Mr. Sharpman there, himself? and did not he know that it was all real and true? He could not understand the lawyer's allegation. Later on, when Sharpman declared boldly that Ralph's statement on the witness-stand was a carefully concocted falsehood, the bluntness of the charge was like a cruel blow, and the boy's sensitive nerves shrank and quivered beneath it; then his lips grew pale, his breath came in gasps, the room went swimming round him, darkness came before his eyes, and his weak body, enfeebled by prolonged fasting and excitement, slipped down to the floor. The people in the court-room scrambled to their feet again to look over into the bar. A man who had entered the room in time to hear Sharpman's brutal speech pushed his way through the crowd, and hurried down to the place where Ralph was lying. It was Bachelor Billy. In a moment he was down on his knees by the boy's side, chafing the small cold hands and wrists, while Mrs. Burnham, kneeling on the other side, was dipping her handkerchief into a glass of water, and bathing the lad's face. Bachelor Billy turned on his knees and looked up angrily at Sharpman. "Mayhap an' ye've killet 'im," he said, "wi' your traish an' your lees!" Then he rose to his feet and continued: "Can ye no' tell when a lad speaks the truth? Mon! he's as honest as the day is lang! But what's the use o' tellin' ye? ye ken it yoursel'. Ye _wull_ be fause to 'im!" His lips were white with passion as he knelt again by the side of the unconscious boy. "Ye're verra gude to the lad, ma'am," he said to Mrs. Burnham, who had raised Ralph's head in her arms and was pressing her wet handkerchief against it; "ye're verra gude, but ma mind is to tak' 'im hame an' ten' till 'im mysel'. He was ower-tired, d'ye see, wi' the trooble an' the toil, an' noo I fear me an they've broke the hert o' 'im." Then Bachelor Billy, lifting the boy up in his arms, set his face toward the door. The people pressed back and made way for him as he passed up the aisle holding the drooping body very tenderly, looking down at times with great compassion into the white face that lay against his breast; and the eyes that watched his sturdy back until it disappeared from view were wet with sympathetic tears. When the doors had closed behind him, Sharpman turned again to the jury, with a bitterly sarcastic smile upon his face.