the green table as though the words he wanted would not come, and his
eyes wandered from one face to another, until they rested upon the
bowed head of the only woman in the room. They remained there for some
short time, and then Barrow drew in his breath more quickly, and
turned with something like a show of confidence to the jury.

"All that man said of me is true," he said. He gave a toss of his
hands as a man throws away the reins. "I admit all he says. I
_am_ a back number; I _am_ out of date; I _was_ a loafer and a
blackguard. I never shot any man in the back, nor I never assassinated
no one; but that's neither here nor there. I'm not in a place where I
can expect people to pick out their words; but, as he says, I _am_ a
bad lot. He says I have enjoyed a reputation as a desperado. I am not
bragging of that; I just ask you to remember that he said it. Remember
it of me. I was not the sort to back down to man or beast, and I'm not
now. I am not backing down, now; I'm taking my punishment. Whatever
you please to make it, I'll take it; and that," he went on, more
slowly, "makes it harder for me to ask what I want to ask, and make
you all believe I am not asking it for myself."

He stopped, and the silence in the room seemed to give him some faint
encouragement of sympathy, though it was rather the silence of
curiosity.

Colonel Stogart gave a stern look upward, and asked the prisoner's
wife, in a whisper, if she knew what her husband meant to say, but she
shook her head. She did not know. The District Attorney smiled
indulgently at the prisoner and at the men about him, but they were
watching the prisoner.