nd; for as quick as a flash, Mr. Roddy
seemed to stiffen every muscle in his body. He pulled the other man
toward him with one arm and shot out his other fist. It made a dull
sound like a blow struck on a pan of dough. And the wretched murderer
slumped down onto the floor like a sack of bran, rolled over on his
back, and was still.

"There!" said Mr. Roddy, with his cheerful smile.

The Judge had jumped forward, too, with a shout.

"Just a minute, Judge," said the reporter. "Let me explain. You remember
that I found out that two years ago our clever friend was at Bridgeport.
That summer a girl was found in the park there--murdered. I was on the
case. They never found out who did it. Have we or have we not just heard
the confession of the man who killed her?"

"You mean to testify that this brute confessed to that other murder?"
asked the Judge, choking out the words. "You mean to hang this man for a
crime he never committed?"

"Why not?" asked Mr. Roddy. "It's between us and it can be done. It's
justice, isn't it?"

"My God!" said the Judge. He began to bite his knuckles as if he was
tempted sorely enough.

What made me step over to look at the unconscious man's face? I do not
know, unless it was the design of Fate. White it was--white and terrible
and stamped with evil and dissipation and fearful dreams. But there was
a smile on it as if the blow had been a caress, and that smile was still
the smile of a child who sees before it all the endless pleasures of
self-indulgence.

I felt the years slide back, I saw the mask of evil and folly torn away.
I was sitting again in a beautiful gown in the Trois Folies in Venice,
the wind was blowing the flowers on my table, the water in the canal
sounded through the lattice, a man was tearing tablecloths from their
places, dishes crashed, and then I saw the fellow's smile fly and his
face turn sober, and I heard his voice say, "What are _you_ doing here?"
as if he had known me for centuries. Because I knew then, in one look,
that John Chalmers and Monty Cranch were one. I had met him for the
second time--a wreck of a man--a murderer. But the mystery of a woman's
heart--!

"Well," I heard Mr. Roddy say, "are we going to hang him?"

"No," I cried, like a wild thing. "No, Judge. No! No! No!"

"And why not?" he asked, glaring at me.

"It's against your oath, sir," I said, like one inspired. "And it's
against honor to hang a creature with lies."

The Judge thought a lon