He spoke as if he were dazed. His voice dropped almost to a whisper. He gazed out over the heads of the people in the court room with eyes that were looking into the past. He saw Dannie as he appeared that morning--his weariness, his exhaustion, his nervous excitement, his utter collapse as they stood together in the dew-wet grass of the graveyard. It all came back to him with the clearness, with the quick cruelty of a lightning stroke. His eyes drooped, his face paled, his head dropped lower and still lower, till his chin rested on his breast. People in the court room who looked on him knew that something had happened to him; but whether it was physical illness or mental distress they could not tell. For a minute the room was still as death. Then the stillness was broken by a slight movement among the rear benches, swift footsteps were heard in the aisle, a boy came hurrying down to the bar of the court. His face was drawn and pale with excitement and fatigue. His eyes, from which shone both distress and determination, were fixed straight ahead of him. As he went, he held out his hands toward the old man on the witness stand. “Gran’pap! Oh, Gran’pap! I did it. I pulled up the stakes. I threw ’em into the brook. I did it in the night--in the night--in the moonlight. Oh, Gran’pap!” He crossed the bar, wound his way among chairs and tables, reached the witness box, and stood there leaning against it, and looking up beseechingly into his grandfather’s face. For one moment Abner Pickett sat motionless, as if he were stunned, looking with staring eyes at the boy standing below him. Then he reached his long arms out over the rail and wound them about his grandson’s shoulders, and then he hid his rugged face in the soft curls that clustered on the boy’s neck. CHAPTER VIII The moment of silence in the court room was followed by a confused murmur of voices. People were moving about in their seats and craning their necks, anxious to see. Charlie Pickett was on his feet, his face flushed, his breast heaving with emotion, his eyes fixed on the two figures at the witness stand. When Abner Pickett lifted his face from Dannie’s neck, his eyes were filled with tears. “Where did you come from, Dannie?” he asked; and Dannie answered:-- “I came from home, Gran’pap.” “Not to-day?” “Yes, to-day.” “But, Dannie, how--how--?” “I had to, Gran’pap. I had to tell you. I had to make it right as near as I could, as quick as I could.” Again the old man, leaning far out over the rail, drew the boy up to his breast. For the moment Marshall was at a loss how to act. He did not quite know what was coming next. Then his long experience and his native shrewdness came to his rescue, and he rose to the situation. “That will do, Mr. Pickett,” he said. “Dannie, you may take the witness stand.”