ttle wanton would be better off inside the
strong arm of the law than outside it? No jury of Southern men would
convict her of murder--the thought was incredible. She would be kindly
dealt with. In one illuminating flash the major divined that these would
have been the inevitable conclusions of any one of those ambitious young
men at the office. He bent forward.

"What did you do then, ma'am?" he asked.

"I didn't know what to do," she said, dropping her hands into her lap.
"I run till I couldn't run no more, and then I walked and walked and
walked. I reckin I must 'a' walked ten miles. And then, when I was jest
about to drop, I come past this house. There was a light burnin' on the
porch and I could make out to read the sign on the door, and it said
Lodgers Taken.

"So I walked in and rung the bell, and when the woman came I said I'd
jest got here from the country and wanted a room. She charged me two
dollars a week, in advance; and I paid her two dollars down--and she
showed me the way up here.

"I've been here ever since, except twice when I slipped out to buy me
somethin' to eat at a grocery store and to git some newspapers. At first
I figgered the police would be a-comin' after me; but they didn't--there
wasn't nobody at all seen the shootin', I reckin. And I was skeered Vic
Magner might tell on me; but I guess she didn't want to run no risk of
gittin' in trouble herself--that Captain Brennan, of the Second
Precinct, he's been threatenin' to run her out of town the first good
chance he got. And there wasn't none of the other girls there that
knowed I ever knew Rod Bullard. So, you see, I ain't been arrested yit.

"Layin' here yistiddy all day, with nothin' to do but think and cry, I
made up my mind I'd kill myself. I tried to do it. I took that there
pistol out and I put it up to my head and I said to myself that all I
had to do was jest to pull on that trigger thing and it wouldn't hurt
me but a secont--and maybe not that long. But I couldn't do it,
mister--I jest couldn't do it at all. It seemed like I wanted to die,
and yit I wanted to live too. All my life I've been jest that way--first
thinkin' about doin' one thing and then another, and hardly ever doin'
either one of 'em.

"Here on this bed tonight I got to thinkin' if I could jest tell
somebody about it that maybe after that I'd feel easier in my mind. And
right that very minute you come and knocked on the door, and I knowed it
was a sign--I knowed y