as the regulations are written. But
he's doing it. And I want to know--it's the biggest thing I EVER wanted
to know--did you kill Barkley?"

"O'Connor, if you don't believe a dying man's word--you haven't much
respect for death, have you?"

"That's the theory on which the law works, but sometimes it ain't
human. Confound it, man, DID YOU?"

"Yes."

O'Connor sat down and with his finger-nails pried open the box of
cigars. "Mind if I smoke with you?" he asked. "I need it. I'm shot up
with unexpected things this morning. Do you care if I ask you about the
girl?"

"The girl!" exclaimed Kent. He sat up straighter, staring at O'Connor.

The staff-sergeant's eyes were on him with questioning steadiness. "I
see--you don't know her," he said, lighting his cigar. "Neither do I.
Never saw her before. That's why I am wondering about Inspector Kedsty.
I tell you, it's queer. He didn't believe you this morning, yet he was
all shot up. He wanted me to go with him to his house. The cords stood
out on his neck like that--like my little finger.

"Then suddenly he changed his mind and said we'd go to the office. That
took us along the road that runs through the poplar grove. It happened
there. I'm not much of a girl's man, Kent, and I'd be a fool to try to
tell you what she looked like. But there she was, standing in the path
not ten feet ahead of us, and she stopped me in my tracks as quick as
though she'd sent a shot into me. And she stopped Kedsty, too. I heard
him give a sort of grunt--a funny sound, as though some one had hit
him. I don't believe I could tell whether she had a dress on or not,
for I never saw anything like her face, and her eyes, and her hair, and
I stared at them like a thunder-struck fool. She didn't seem to notice
me any more than if I'd been thin air, a ghost she couldn't see.

"She looked straight at Kedsty, and she kept looking at him--and then
she passed us. Never said a word, mind you. She came so near I could
have touched her with my hand, and not until she was that close did she
take her eyes from Kedsty and look at me. And when she'd passed I
thought what a couple of cursed idiots we were, standing there
paralyzed, as if we'd never seen a beautiful girl before in our lives.
I went to remark that much to the Old Man when--"

O'Connor bit his cigar half in two as he leaned nearer to the cot.

"Kent, I swear that Kedsty was as white as chalk when I looked at him!
There wasn't a drop of blood left