“And did you see him?” She looked at Harshaw, with a deep humiliation and resentment intensifying the flush on her delicate cheek to a burning crimson. His gravity, the respect of his manner, reassured her. She replied with her deliberate dignity,—— “You-uns know mighty well he wouldn’t see me.” “Then what did you do?” She seemed for a moment doubtful if she would answer. “I dunno how ye hev forgot,” she said slowly. “_I_ hain’t.” “I want you to tell the jury,” he explained. “I tried to make you listen.” “And what did I do?” Once more she pushed her brown bonnet further from her golden head, and looked at him silently. The pause was so long that the attorney-general remarked that really he could not see the pertinence of the examination. The judge spoke presently: “Counsel would do well not to harass the witness with unnecessary questions.” What new life was in the man’s tones! He had forgotten to drawl. There had been many a badgered witness on the stand to-day whom he had not interfered to protect. Mink eyed him narrowly through the closing dusk. He was leaning forward upon the desk. He was listening with no impartial judicial interest. A personal concern was expressed in his face. The sympathetic cadence in his voice struck on other ears than Mink’s. It was like an open sesame to Alethea’s heart. The pent-up indignation burst forth. She was all at once eager to tell the affronts she could not resent. “He wouldn’t listen ter me, jedge!” she cried. “He ran from me,—actially ran down the street. An’ I didn’t know what ter do. An’ nobody knowed ’bout ’n it but me. An’ I dassent tell nobody ’ceptin’ the lawyer. An’ Jerry Price,—him ez air on the jury,—he ’lowed ef I knowed suthin’ I wanted ter tell in court, he’d _make_ the lawyer listen, an’ so he did. An’ I tole him.” “When was that?” asked Harshaw. “Yestiddy mornin’.” “So that was the reason you didn’t tell it before?” “I war feared ter tell ennybody but the lawyer, ’kase Reuben’s enemies mought fix it somehows so ’twouldn’t be no ’count.” “Well, what was this you wanted to tell?” Her face was growing dim among the glooms. The dusky figures within the bar, the shadowy judge, the indistinct mass of the crowd, the great windows,—indefinite gray squares,—seemed for a moment the darker because of a dull suffusion of yellow light in the halls, falling through the doorways, and heralding the coming of the lamps. “I wanted to tell that I seen Tad Simpkins arter they ’lowed he war drownded.” There was absolute silence for a moment; then, wild commotion. Men were talking loudly to each other in the crowd. The lights came in with a flare. Several of the jury requested to have the answer repeated. The attorney-general began to ask a question, left off, and bent his head to his notes. A sudden shrill, quaking voice pierced the tumult.