"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 held it in his hands. The girl went straight on, pouring out her sentences with a driven, desperate eagerness. "I didn't mean to do it, though--God knows I didn't mean to do it! He treated me mighty sorry--it was lowdown and mean all the way through, the way he done me--but I didn't mean him no real harm. I was only aimin' to skeer him into doin' the right thing by me. It was accidental-like--it really was, mister! In all my life I ain't never intentionally done nobody any harm. And yit it seems like somebody's forever and a day imposin' on me!" She quavered with the puny passion of her protest against the world that had bruised and beaten her as with rods. Shocked, stunned, the major sat in a daze, making little clucking sounds in his throat. For once in his conversational life he couldn't think of the right words to say. He fumbled the short pistol in his hands. [Illustration: "I WAS THE ONE THAT SHOT HIM--WITH THIS THING HERE." --_Page 164._]