you are jesting."

"Indeed, I am not. I have told you the truth. You will hear it sooner or
later if you remain on Blue. It is the one great piece of neighborhood
history since the Indians left. It is nothing to boast of. I simply
state it as a fact,--a lamentable fact, I suppose I should say. But I
don't feel that way about it at all."

"Did you kill him?" asked the astonished Bostonian.

"No, I'm glad to say he lived; but that was not my fault. I tried to
kill him. He now lives in Illinois."

Williams looked at her doubtingly, and still feared she was hoaxing him.
He could not bring himself to believe there dwelt within the breast of
the gentle girl beside him a spirit that would give her strength to do
such a deed under any conditions. Never had he met a woman in whom the
adorable feminine weaknesses were more pronounced. She was a coward. He
had seen her run, screaming in genuine fright, from a ground squirrel.
She was meek and unresisting, to the point of weakness. He had seen her
endure unprovoked anger and undeserved rebuke from her mother, and
intolerable slights from Tom, that would surely have aroused retaliation
had there been a spark of combativeness in her gentle heart. That she
was tender and loving could be seen in every glance of her eyes, in
every feature of her face, in every tone of her soft, musical voice.
Surely, thought Williams, the girl could not kill a mouse. Where, then,
would she find strength to kill a man? But she told him, in meagre
outline, her story, and he learned that a great, self-controlled, modest
strength nestled side by side with ineffable gentleness in the heart of
this young girl; and that was the moment of Roger Williams's undoing,
and the beginning of Rita's woe. Prior to that moment he had believed
himself her superior; but, much to his surprise, he found that Roger
occupied second place in his own esteem, while a simple country girl,
who had never been anywhere but to church, a Fourth of July picnic, and
one church social, with his full consent quietly occupied first. This
girl, he discovered, was a living example of what unassisted nature can
do when she tries. All this change in Williams had been wrought in an
instant when he learned that the girl had shot a man. She was the only
woman of his acquaintance who could boast that distinction.

What was the mental or moral process that had led him to his
conclusions? We all know there is a fascination about those who have
l