'"
Morris stood there, shaking, and sobbing hard, dry sobs.
"It'll kill him!" the sheriff said. "Quick, some whiskey!"
A flask was forced between the blue, trembling lips.
"Drink, old fellow," and Mitchell put his arm about Morris's shoulders.
"It's all right now, thank God!"
Morris was leaning against his friend, sobbing like a woman. The sheriff
drew his coat-sleeve across his eyes, and shook his head.
"What made the nigger run away?" he said, slowly--adding, as if to himself,
"God help us!"
A vehicle was borrowed, and the judge and the sheriff drove with John
Morris over to the station to meet the ten-o'clock train. The sheriff and
the judge remained in the little carriage, and the station agent did his
best to leave the whole platform to John Morris. As the moments went by the
look of anxious agony grew deeper on the face of the waiting man. The
sheriff's ominous words, falling like a pall over the first flash of his
happiness, had filled his mind with wordless terrors. He could scarcely
breathe or move, and could not speak when his wife stepped off and put her
hands in his. She looked up, and without a query, without a word of
explanation, answered the anguished questioning of his eyes, whispering,
"He did not touch me.
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