Jordan Morse faced the room, with its silent, observant crowd, pressing to his breast the dead body of his child. Then he turned to Lafe, white, twitching, and suffering.
"I shot Maudlin Bates," he said, haltingly; then turning to the jury he continued: "The cobbler's an innocent man----"
A menacing groan fell from a hundred lips at his words.
He deliberately took from his hip pocket a revolver, lifted the weapon and finished:
Then came the sharp, short bark of the gun, and the bullet found a path to his brain. He staggered, frantically clutching the slender body of Bobbie closer--and toppled over.
Lafe's homecoming was one of solemn rejoicing. The only shadow hanging over the happy family was the absence of Blind Bobbie, who now lay by the side of his dead father.
After the first greetings, Lafe took his boy baby and pressed him gratefully to his heart.
"He's beautiful, Peggy dear, ain't he?" he implored, drinking in with affectionate, fatherly eyes the rosy little face. "Wife darlin', make a long story short an' tell me he's beautiful."
"Lafe," she admonished, "you're as full of brag as a egg is of meat, and salt won't save you. All your life you've boasted till I thought the world'd come to an end, an' I ain't never said a word against it. Now you can't teach me none of your bad habits, because I won't learn 'em, so don't try." She paused, her lips lifting a little at the corners, and went on: "But I'm tellin' you with my own lips there ain't a beautifuller baby in this county'n this little feller, nor one half so beautiful! So there's my mind, sir."
"'Tis so, dear," murmured the cobbler, rejoicing.
About five o'clock in the afternoon, while Peggy was uptown replenishing the slender larder and Lafe and Jinnie were alone with the baby, there came a timid knock.
Jinnie went to the door and there stood Molly Merriweather. The woman's face was white and drawn, her eyes darkly circled underneath.
One glance at her and Jinnie lost her own color.
"I want to speak with you just a moment," the woman said beseechingly. "May I come in?"
Without answering, Jinnie backed into the room, which action Molly took as a signal to enter.
She inclined her head haughtily to the cobbler.
"Would you mind if I spoke to Miss Grandoken alone?"