My uncle Frank would have let them hang
me. I began at last to realize how badly it looked for me. They laughed
at my story of the man who ran away. My uncle Frank deliberately denied
that Isaac Perry had been there. I was stupefied. It came over me
suddenly that--that Uncle Frank had done the shooting. He had killed
his own father!"
"The monster!"
"How wonderfully everything worked out against me. The gun, with one
barrel empty, for I had fired it that very day in the woods; my
presence at the window; the servants who saw me looking in; my uncle
Frank's tale of how he came out on the gallery above and saw me hiding
in the dead lilac bushes, and afterwards creep up to the window to
look in upon the thing I had done. He told of my attempt to run and of
his straggle to hold me. One of the servants had seen me go down when
granddaddy called to me, and again he had seen me go down quietly to
the library after the paper. I did go quietly, it is true, so as not
to disturb the old gentleman.
"They all rushed upstairs to search my room. Lying on my table was the
long envelope. Judge Gainsborough opened it, so he says.
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