Even an inferior woman could not associate with a superior man that long without some of his gentility passing to her, thought he. Colonel Price inclined his head gravely.
“Madam, Peter Newbolt’s son never would commit a crime, much less the crime of murder,” he said, yet with more sincerity in his words, perhaps, than lay in his heart.
“I only ask you to hold back your decision on him till you can learn the truth,” said she, unconsciously passing over the colonel’s declaration of confidence. “You don’t remember Joe maybe, for he was only a little shaver the last time you stopped at our house when you was canvassin’ for office. That’s been ten or ’leven–maybe more–years ago. Joe, he’s growed considerable since then.”
“They do, they shoot up,” said the colonel encouragingly.
“Yes; but Joe he’s nothing like me. He runs after his father’s side of the family, and he’s a great big man in size now, Colonel Price; but he’s as soft at heart as a dove.”
So she talked on, telling him what she knew. When she had finished laying the case of Joe before him, the colonel sat 178 thinking it over a bit, one hand in his beard, his head slightly bowed. Mrs. Newbolt watched him with anxious eyes. Presently he looked at her and smiled. A great load of uncertainty went up from her heart in a sigh.
“The first thing to do is to get him a lawyer, and the best one we can nail,” the colonel said.
She nodded, her face losing its worried tension.
“And the next thing is for Joe to make a clean breast of everything, holding back nothing that took place between him and Isom that night.”
“I’ll tell him to do it,” said she eagerly, “and I know he will when I tell him you said he must.”