"Yes."
"Were you tried and convicted in New York?"
"Yes."
"Were you guilty?"
Looking over the head of the little man, Ordway's gaze travelled slowly across the upturned faces upon the floor of the house. Hardly a man passed under his look whom he had not assisted once at least in the hour of his need. "I saved that one from drink," he thought almost joyfully, "that one from beggary—I stood side by side with that other in the hour of his shame——"
"Were you guilty?" repeated the high nasal voice in his ear.
His gaze came quickly back, and as it passed over the head of Baxter, he was conscious again of a throb of pity.
"Yes," he answered for the last time. Then, while the silence lasted, he turned from the platform and went out of the hall into the night.
CHAPTER XI
Between Man And Woman
HE walked rapidly to the end of the street, and then slackened his pace almost unconsciously as he turned into the country road. The night had closed in a thick black curtain over the landscape, and the windows of the Negroes' cabins burned like little still red flames along the horizon. Straight ahead the road was visible as a pale, curving streak across the darkness.