“And you don’t look a bad ’un—you didn’t kick me or pull me about as I’ve seen some do, never thinkin’ they’ll be old themselves one day. You’ve a gal, mebbe?—one you’ve sort o’ set your heart on!” he added, hooking his bony fingers on one of my arms and fixing me with those searching eyes of his. “How’d you feel if any one stole her out of your bosom, and ruined her, and cast her at your feet—a poor, bleeding, crushed thing, ready to lie down and die? Wouldn’t you feel like killing that man? I see it in your face. Well, that’s just how I felt; we’re both alike, only that I’ve done it, and you haven’t come to that yet.” At the Office he quietly and calmly gave his name as Philip Huddlestone, and when asked if he had any statement to make, he said— “I’ve nothing to say but that I shot the man, and that I’m not sorry I did it. I’m only a poor man, a journeyman painter by trade, but I’ve my feelings the same as the richest. I’ve a daughter I set my heart on, and though she was only a barmaid, you mustn’t think she wasn’t good and pure. That man—him that I shot, and ain’t sorry for—met her at the bar, and got talking to her about love and nonsense, and kept telling her of his estate that he’d come into when his father died, and of the money he had coming to him. Well, the poor gal didn’t know no better, and made up to run away with him to Paris. He was to marry her there, and I believe did go through some affair of the kind to blind her eyes when he saw she was set on coming back if he didn’t. But then the law ain’t strong enough there to make it binding in England, and he knowd she was no more his wife in this country than I am. Well, he kept her till he was tired of her, and then bolted and left her. She got helped across the water, and then came back to her poor old dad. I didn’t know my own gal—my own flesh and blood. I think she’s dying, and I left her in safe hands while I came up to Scotland to see her righted. She sent me to do that, but she didn’t know I meant to do it with a pistol. I walked most of the way, ’cause we’re very poor, and I’m not so able to work as I used to be.”