And it
might jest as well be you as anybody, I guess."

She sat up on the side of the bed, dangling her feet, and subconsciously
the major took in fuller details of her attire--the cheap white slippers
with rickety, worn-down high heels; the sleazy stockings; the
over-decorated skirt of shabby blue cloth; the soiled and rumpled waist
of coarse lace, gaping away from the scrawny neck, where the fastenings
had pulled awry. Looped about her throat and dangling down on her flat
breast, where they heaved up and down with her breathing, was a double
string of pearls that would have been worth ten thousand dollars had
they been genuine pearls. A hand which was big-knuckled and thin held a
small, moist wad of handkerchief. About her there was something
unmistakably bucolic, and yet she was town-branded, too, flesh and
soul. Major Stone bowed with the ceremonious detail that was a part of
him.

"My name, ma'am, is Stone--Major Putnam Stone, at your service," he told
her.

"Yes, sir," she said, seeming not to catch either his name or his title.
"Well, mister, I'm goin' to tell you something that'll maybe surprise
you. I ain't goin' to ast you not to tell anybody, 'cause I guess you
will anyhow, sooner or later; and it don't make much difference if you
do. But seems's if I can't hold in no longer. I guess maybe I'll feel
easier in my own mind when I git it all told. Shet that door--jest close
it--the lock is broke--and set down in that chair, please, sir."

The major closed the latchless door and took the one tottery chair. The
girl remained where she was, on the side of her bed, her slippered feet
dangling, her eyes fixed on a spot where there was a three-cornered
break in the dirty-gray plastering.

"You know about Rodney G. Bullard, the lawyer, don't you?--about him
bein' found shot day before yistiddy evenin' in the mouth of that
alley?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "Though I was not personally acquainted with the
man himself, I am familiar with the circumstances you mention."

"Well," she said, with a sort of jerk behind each word, "it was me that
done it!"

"I beg your pardon," he said, half doubting whether he had heard
aright, "but what was it you said you did?"

"Shot him!" she answered--"I was the one that shot him--with this thing
here." She reached one hand under the pillow and drew out a
short-barreled, stubby revolver and extended it to him. Mechanically he
took it, and thereafter for a space he hel