"What can I do for you?" he asked.
Horror crept into her eyes at sight of his emaciated face. Her nerves on the raw, she twisted her hands restlessly, looked here, there, everywhere.
"You needn't be afraid of me. What is it?" he said, very quietly.
She burst into a confession, the wildest, maddest thing he had ever heard. At the end, she was sobbing at his feet.
He listened and his face never changed in the slightest, but to become a little more set, a little sterner. Nor did he move a muscle—just sat motionless.
"You overheard this fellow talking to the man you live with?" he asked at last.
She nodded, crying.
"And he is to shoot me when I go up on the platform tonight?"
She nodded again.
"You don't know the man?"