Lillian swayed for a moment as if she might fall. Then, with a piercing shriek, she darted forward and seized it from his shaking grasp. She held it up to the light, and as Gladys returned, herself bearing the tray with the glass and decanter, Lillian convulsively clutched her arm and, speechless and trembling, pointed to the name in tarnished gilt on the inside of the sole--her own shoemaker, who had constructed the delicate little hand-sewed slipper! "Where is he now--where is this child?" Bayne demanded precipitately, his own breath short, his pulses beating in his temples till the veins seemed near bursting. "I can't rightly say _now_," the old man drawled; "but--but I kin tell you where we-uns lef' him. 'T war a awful bis'ness, that crackin' off Briscoe--that warn't in the plan at all. We-uns war after the revenuer. What right had he ter bust our still an' break up our wu'm and pour our mash an' singlings out on the ground? Ain't it our'n? Ain't the corn an' apples an' peaches our'n? Didn't we grow 'em?--an' what right hev the gover'ment ter say we kin eat 'em, but can't bile 'em--eh? They b'long ter we-uns--an' gosh! the gover'ment can't hender! But we never meant no harm ter Briscoe. Lawd! Lawd! that warn't in the plan at all. But the child viewed it, an', by gosh! I b'lieve that leetle creetur could hev told the whole tale ez straight as a string--same ez ef he war twenty-five year old. That deedie of a baby-child talked sense--horse-sense--he _did_, fur a fack!" "Where--where----" Lillian was using every power of her being to restrain the screams of wild excitement, to sustain the suspense. "Where did you last see him?" asked Bayne. He had grown deadly white, and the old man, lifting his face, gazed vaguely from one to the other. Their intense but controlled excitement seemed subtly imparted to his nerves. The details of the tragedy had become hackneyed in his own consciousness, but their significance, their surfeit of horror, revived on witnessing their effect on others. "Look-a-hyar, you two an' this woman will stan' up fur me when I gin myself up fur State's evidence, ef I put ye on the track fur findin' Bubby? He's thar all right yit, I'll be bound--well an' thrivin, I reckon. He hev got backbone, tough ez a pine knot." "Yes, yes, indeed; we pledge ourselves to sustain you," cried Lillian. Bayne was putting the glass of brandy into the grimy, shaking paw, mindful of the old man's shattered composure. "It be a mighty risk I be a-runnin'"--the old, seamed face was of a deadly pallor and was beginning to glister with a cold sweat. "I reckon I oughtn't ter tell nuthin' exceptin' ter the officers, but--but--I 'lowed leetle Archie's mother would help me some again them bloodhounds o' the law." "I'll move heaven and earth to aid you!" cried Lillian.