Looking at him, that same glow of mysterious questioning in her eyes, the girl found him suddenly laughing straight into her face.

“This is funny.  It’s very funny, Miss—­Miss—­”

“Marette,” she supplied, answering his hesitation.

“It’s funny, Miss Marette.”

“Not Miss Marette.  Just Marette,” she corrected.

“I say, it’s funny,” he tried again.  “You see, it’s not so terribly pleasant as you might think to—­er—­be here, where I am, dying.  And last night I thought about the finest thing in the world would be to have a woman beside me, a woman who’d be sort of sympathetic, you know, ease the thing off a little, maybe say she was sorry.  And then the Lord answers my prayer, and you come—­and you sort of give me the impression that you made the appointment with yourself to see how a fellow looks when he pops off.”

The shimmer of light came into the blue eyes again.  She seemed to have done with her mental analysis of him, and he saw that a bit of color was creeping into her cheeks, pale when she had entered the room.

“You wouldn’t be the first I’ve seen pop off,” she assured him.  “There have been a number, and I’ve never cried very much.  I’d rather see a man die than some animals.  But I shouldn’t like to see you do it.  Does that comfort you—­like the woman you prayed the Lord for?”

“It does,” gasped Kent.  “But why the devil, Miss Marette—­”

“Marette,” she corrected again.

“Yes, Marette—­why the devil have you come to see me at just the moment I’m due to explode?  And what’s your other name, and how old are you, and what do you want of me?”

“I haven’t any other name, I’m twenty, and I came to get acquainted with you and see what you are like.”

“Bully!” exclaimed Kent.  “We’re getting there fast!  And now, why?”

The girl drew her chair a few inches nearer, and for a moment Kent thought that her lovely mouth was trembling on the edge of a smile.

“Because you have lied so splendidly to save another man who was about to die.”

“Et tu, Brute!” sighed Kent, leaning back against his pillows.  “Isn’t it possible for a decent man to kill another man and not be called a liar when he tells about it?  Why do so many believe that I lie?”

“They don’t,” said the girl.  “They believe you—­now.  You have gone so completely into the details of the murder in your confession that they are quite convinced.  It would be too bad if you lived, for you surely would be hanged.  Your lie sounds and reads like the truth.  But I know it is a lie.  You did not kill John Barkley.”

“And the reason for your suspicion?”

For fully half a minute the girl’s eyes rested on, his own.  Again they seemed to be looking through him and into him.  “Because I know the man who did kill him,” she said quietly, “and it was not you.”

Kent made a mighty effort to appear calm.  He reached for a cigar from the box that Cardigan had placed on his bed, and nibbled the end of it.  “Has some one else been confessing?” he asked.