On account of the order, the colonel had no time for Joe, for art with him, especially corn art, was above the worries and concerns of all men. He did not forget the prisoner in the white heat of his commission. For several days he had it in his mind to ask Alice to visit him, and carry to him the assurance of the continuance of the family interest and regard. But it was an unconventional thing to request of a young lady; a week slipped past before the colonel realized it while he temporized in his mind. At last he approached it circuitously and with a great deal of diplomatic concealment of his purpose, leaving ample room for retreat without unmasking his intention, in case he should discern indications of unwillingness. By that time the election was over and the country regularly insured against anarchy, devastation, and ruin for two years longer. The prosecuting attorney and the sheriff had been reelected; the machinery of the law was ready to turn at the grist. The colonel was pleased to see that Alice seconded him in his admission that they had been treating Joe Newbolt shamefully. Of course the sheriff was partly to blame for that, having set himself up with metropolitan importance, now that he was secure in office. He had put aside Wednesday as the one day of the week on which visitors, other than relatives or counsel of prisoners, would be permitted to enter the jail. It chanced to be a Wednesday morning when the colonel got around to it finally, and they agreed heartily and warmly that somebody ought to go and carry a little gleam of cheer and encouragement to Joe. The colonel looked at his unfinished picture, then at the mellow light of the autumn day, so much like the soul of corn itself, and then at Alice. He lifted his eyebrows and waved his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "Never mind," said she; "you go ahead with the picture; I'll go alone." The colonel blessed her, and turned to his picture with a great sigh of relief. Alice left him to prepare for her visit, a flutter of eagerness in her heart, a feeling of timid nervousness which was unaccountable and strange. She was not accustomed to trembling at the thought of meeting young men. Usually she went forward to the ordeal with a smile, which the victim would not have gathered a great deal of pleasure from, in most cases, if he had been able to read, for he would have seen her appraisement of him on her lips. There was none of this amusing measurement of Joe, no sounding of his shallows with her quick perception like a sunbeam finding the pebbles in the bottom of a brook. There was something in his presence which seemed like a cool wind on the forehead, palpable, yet profound from the mystery of its source.