“Poor Joe was but a child, after all, and he cried all night long.
“In the morning he was taken before a magistrate, and charged with highway robbery and murder—the robbery of the stage coach and the murder of Lawyer Ketcham.
“Joe, to save the name of his adopted family from reproach, gave his own as John Weston, saying to himself that he had about as much right to the one as to the other.
“He told his little story, but no one believed it, and he was duly committed to jail, to take his trial at the forthcoming assizes.
“He had not seen or heard of his young wife since his arrest.
“Again he childishly implored constable and jailer not to let Lil know the truth of his misery, but to send her word that he was detained on business, and would come to her as soon as he could.
“And, as before, half in pity and half in impatience, they promised everything he required.
“Joe was too deeply humiliated to write to any one. It is all very well to talk about the support of conscious innocence, but it is reasonable to conclude that a man who is by his nature utterly incapable of crime suffers much more under its false imputation than does the darkest of criminals. Conscious innocence did not help poor little Joe much. He pined under the false charge, so ashamed of it that he could not prevail upon himself to write to any friend.
“But one day his prison door was opened and Joseph Wyvil entered the cell, his honest face full of sympathy, his kind eyes full of tears, his voice full of affection, as he stretched out his hands and took Joe’s, saying:
“‘My poor, poor boy!’