Jared Boyce obeyed this order from the magistrate, and mounted the step which ran in front of the judge’s seat. His face was flushed to a bricky red now, and his eyes wandered away from any one who attempted to look into them. They were turned furtively aside from the judge while Boyce told his story in a hard, cruel voice, which never faltered or softened in its tone from beginning to end. We know what that story was, and how the wicked plot to ruin this brave, innocent lad had grown and perfected itself in the craft and greed of a few base creatures, who at first thought only of throwing their own guilt on him, but afterwards broadened their plot in hopes of great future gain. It was impossible for Boyce to keep the blood from receding now and then from his face. When that stern woman’s eyes were bent on him, he seemed to feel their searching fire, and grew deadly pale, though his glance never rested on her once. Two or three times the accused lad made a step or two forward, with his hand clenched, tempted to strike his fellow clerk for the slander he was uttering; but a touch of the old woman’s hand brought him back to her side, and the perjured wretch told his story to the end, without interruption of any kind. CHAPTER LIX. THE EXAMINATION COMPLETED. Then Smith the grocer took the stand. There was human feeling in this man, and he bitterly repented the step he had taken after his wife learned of it, and put in her passionate protest. But compunction came too late. His charge had been made; the case was taken out of his hands. He would gladly have softened, or withheld his own evidence; but the oath enforced upon him was a sacred obligation to speak the truth, and against his own will Smith gave in his evidence honestly. While he was speaking a gentleman came into the court-room, and quietly drew toward Mrs. Laurence and her son, who caught him by the hand and whispered, “Oh, take her home! don’t let her stand here to be looked at so! Feel her hands; they are cold as stones! Let them take me. I am a man, and can bear it; but a night in one of those cells would kill any woman! Please, oh, please! We haven’t another friend on earth but Mrs. Smith and you, since he has turned against us.” Here James cast a look full of mournful reproach on Smith, whose voice began to falter, and once more he besought permission to withdraw the charge and let these two helpless creatures go. Guilty as they were, he did not like to see them punished. Then the old woman advanced toward the judge and spoke. It was the first time she had uttered anything but dry, hard monosyllables, since her entrance into the court-room.