Ollie walked out of the court-room with her head up, looking the world in the face. In place of the mark of the beast on her forehead, she was carrying the cool benediction of a virtuous kiss. Joe and Alice stood looking after her until she reached the door; even the most careless there waited her exit as if it was part of some solemn ceremony. When she had passed out of sight beyond the door, the crowd moved suddenly and noisily after her. For the public, the show was over.
Alice looked up into Joe’s face. There was uncertainty in his eyes still, for he was no wiser than those in their generations before him who had failed to read a woman’s 339 heart. Alice saw that cloud hovering before the sun of his felicity. She lifted her hands and gave them to him, as one restoring to its owner something that cannot be denied.
Face to face for a moment they stood thus, hands clasped in hands. For them the world was empty of prying eyes, wondering minds, impertinent faces. For a moment they were alone.
The jurors had come out of the box, and were following the crowd. Hammer was gathering up his books and papers, Judge Maxwell and the prosecuting attorney were talking with Mrs. Newbolt. The sheriff was waiting near the bar, as if he had some duty yet before him to discharge. A smile had come over Colonel Price’s face, where it spread like a benediction as Joe and Alice turned to enter the world again.
“I want to shake hands with you, Joe,” said the sheriff, “and wish you good luck. I always knowed you was as innercent as a child.”
Joe obliged him, and thanked him for his expression, but there were things in the past which were not so easily wiped from the memory–especially a chafed ring around his left wrist, where the sheriff’s iron had galled him when he had fretted against it during the tense moments of those past days.
Sam Lucas offered Joe his hand.
“No hard feeling, Joe, I hope?” said he.
“Well, not in particular–oh, well, you were only doing your duty, as you saw it,” said Joe.
“You could have saved the county a lot of money, and yourself and your friends a lot of trouble and anxiety, if you’d told us all about this thing at the beginning,” complained Lucas, with lingering severity.