On the morrow, the husband and father, having discovered the empty tomb, came to claim her.

She refused to return to them and the case was carried to the court of law.

The verdict given was that a woman who had been "to burial borne" and left for dead, who had been driven from her husband's door and from her childhood home, "must be adjudged as dead in law and fact," was no more daughter or wife, but was set free to form what new ties she would.

The climax of the whole selection came in the line, "The court pronounces the defendant--DEAD!" and the Story Girl was wont to render it with such dramatic intensity and power that the veriest dullard among her listeners could not have missed its force and significance.
She swept along through the poem royally, playing on the emotions of her audience as she had so often played on ours in the old orchard.

Pity, terror, indignation, suspense, possessed her hearers in turn.