Free for the moment from his watchful sword-play of eyes with the prosecutor, Joe had sought Alice's face when he replied to the judge. He was still holding her eyes when the judge spoke again. "Then you must answer the question, or stand in contempt of court," said he. Joe rose slowly to his feet. The sheriff, perhaps thinking that he designed making a dash for liberty, or to throw himself out of a window, rushed forward in official zeal. The judge, studying Joe's face narrowly, waved the officer back. Joe lifted a hand to his forehead in thoughtful gesture and stroked back his hair, standing thus in studious pose a little while. A thousand eyes were bent upon him; five hundred palpitating brains were aching for the relief of his reply. Joe lifted his head and turned solemnly to the judge. "I can't answer the prosecuting attorney's question, sir," he said. "I'm ready to be taken back to jail." The jurors had been leaning out of their places to listen, the older ones with hands cupped to their ears. Now they settled back with disappointed faces, some of them shaking their heads in depreciation of such stubbornness. "You are making a point of honor of it?" said the judge, sharply but not unkindly, looking over his glasses at the raw citadel of virtue which rose towerlike before him. "If you will forgive me, sir, I have no more to say," said Joe, a flitting shadow, as of pain, passing over his face. "Sit down," said the judge. The prosecutor, all on fire from his smothered attempt to uncover the information which he believed himself so nearly in possession of, started to say something, and Hammer got the first syllable of his objection out of his mouth, when the judge waved both of them down. He turned in his chair to Joe, who was waiting calmly now the next event. Judge Maxwell addressed him again. He pointed out to Joe that, since he had taken the witness-stand, he had thus professed his willingness to lay bare all his knowledge of the tragedy, and that his reservation was an indication of insincerity. The one way in which he could have withheld information not of a self-incriminating nature, was for him to have kept off the stand. He showed Joe that one could not come forward under such circumstances and tell one side of a story, or a part of it, confessing at the same time that certain pertinent information was reserved. "No matter who it hurts, it is your duty now to reveal the cause of your quarrel between yourself and Isom Chase that night, and to repeat, to the best of your recollection, the words which passed between you." He explained that, unless Joe should answer the question, it was the one duty of the court to halt the trial there and send him to jail in contempt, and hold him there, his case undecided, until he would answer the question asked. Joe bowed respectfully when the judge concluded, conveying in that manner that he understood.