“You took dinner with her, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have a good dinner?”

“It was splendid.”

“Did you eat a good deal?”

“Yes, sir, I think I eat a great deal.”

“Had a good many things that were new to you, I presume?”

“Yes, sir, quite a good many.”

“Did you think you would like to go there to live?”

“Oh, yes!  I did.  It’s beautiful there, it’s very beautiful.  You don’t know how lovely it is till you get there.  I couldn’t help bein’ happy in a home like that, an’ they couldn’t be no nicer mother’n Mrs. Burnham is, nor no pirtier little sister.  An’ everybody was jest as good to me there!  Why, you don’t know what a—­”

The glow suddenly left the boy’s face, and the rapture fled from his eyes.  In the enthusiasm of his description he had forgotten, for the moment, that it was not all to be his, and when the memory of his loss came back to him, it was like a plunge into outer darkness.  He stopped so unexpectedly, and in such apparent mental distress that people stared at him in astonishment, wondering what had happened.

After a moment of silence he spoke again:  “But it ain’t mine any longer; I can’t have any of it now; I’ve got no right to go there at all any more.”  The sadness in his broken voice was pitiful.  Those who were looking on him saw his under lip tremble and his eyes fill with tears.  But it was only for a moment.  Then he drew himself up until he sat rigidly in his chair, his little hands were tightly clenched, his lips were set in desperate firmness, every muscle of his face grew tense and hard with sudden resolution.  It was a magnificently successful effort of the will to hold back almost overpowering emotion, and to keep both mind and body strong and steady for any ordeal through which he might have yet to pass.

It came upon those who saw it like an electric flash, and in another moment the crowded room was ringing with applause.

CHAPTER XVII.

GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY.

Sharpman had not seen Ralph’s expression and did not know what the noise was all about.  He looked around at the audience uneasily, whispered to Craft for a moment, and then announced that he was done with the witness.  He was really afraid to carry the examination further; there were too many pit-falls along the way.

Goodlaw, too, was wise enough to ask no additional questions.  He did not care to lay grounds for the possible reversal of a judgment in favor of the defendant, by introducing questionable evidence.  But he felt that the case, in its present aspect, needed farther investigation, and he moved for a continuance of the cause for two days.  He desired, he said, to find the person known as Rhyming Joe, and to produce such other evidence as this new and startling turn of affairs might make necessary.