They won't have any mercy if they find
me. They'll take me back and I'll be hung. I can't prove anything--I
can't escape." He had dropped helplessly to the edge of the mattress,
and was staring hard at the sidewall beyond as if expecting his
pursuers to burst in upon him at any moment.
"And you didn't do it?" the clown asked, something like awe in his
voice.
"Before God, I did not. I--I loved my grandfather. I _couldn't_ have
done it. Why, he was the only father I had--the only mother. He was
everything to me. It was--" He caught himself up quickly in his wild
declaration. "I know the man who did it. I heard them talking it
over before it happened, but I didn't know what they were talking
about." His eyes grew almost glassy with the horror that surged up
from behind them.
"Then why don't you tell your story?" demanded the clown. "Let the
other chap clear 'imself."
"They've got the evidence against me. Oh, you don't know! You can't
know how it looked to the world. There's a man who says he saw me with
a gun at my grandfather's window. He did see me there and I had a gun,
but not to kill poor old granddaddy.
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