want 'em to. Just let them keep quiet and let it all die when the
State swings me."

"So there is some secret about the matter that you are willing to die
to keep, is there?" asked the Gouverneur Faulkner with a quickness of
command in his voice. "What had your brother done to Mary Brown that
you killed him for doing?"

"Damn you, what's that to you?" snarled the man as he sprang up from
beside the Gouverneur and leaned, crouched and panting, against the
bars of the cage in which the three of us were inclosed. "Who are you
anyway? My State has said I was to swing for killing him and there's
no more to question about it."

"I am the Governor of your State," answered that Gouverneur Faulkner
as he rose and stood tall and commanding before the poor human being
who was cowering as a dog that had felt the lash of a whip. "You are
my son because you are a son of the State of Harpeth, and as a
representative of that State I am going to exercise my guardianship
and if possible prevent the State from the crime of taking your life
if you do not deserve punishment."

"I'm condemned by the laws of the State. You can't go back on that,
Governor or no Governor," made answer the man, with a panting of
misery in his voice.

"As you know, there are certain unwritten laws which have more
influence in some cases as to the guilt of a murderer than any on the
statute books," said the Gouverneur Faulkner with a very great
slowness, so that the poor human dog might comprehend him. "If you
killed your brother to save--save Mary Brown from worse than death,
then you have not the right to demand execution from your State to
shelter her from publicity when she is no longer in danger of anything
worse. Did you get to her in time to save her or--" "Yes, good God, I
did and I had--damn you, now I'll have to kill you for getting words
out of me that all the lawyers have tried to make me say all this
time," and with the oath and a snarl the man made a lunge at my
Gouverneur Faulkner with something keen and shining that he had drawn
from the top of his coarse boot. But that poor human being of the
prison was not of enough quickness to do the killing of his desire in
the face of Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye, who had twice with her
foil pricked the red cloth heart of the young Count de Couertoir, the
best swordsman of France, in gay combat in the great hall of the old
Chateau de Grez. With my walking cane of a young gentleman of American
fash