called _Myself_.'

'Why _Myself_?'

'Oh, because the narrator did it--the murder. A stranger is found in a
wood, hung to a tree. Nobody knows who he is. But he and the narrator
had met in Paraguay. He, the murdered man, came home, visited the
narrator, and fell in love with the beautiful being to whom the narrator
was engaged. So the narrator lassoed him in a wood.'

'Why?'

'Oh, the old stock reason. He knew too much.'

'What did he know?'

'Why, that the narrator was living on a treasure originally robbed from a
church in South America.'

'But, if it _was_ a treasure, who would care?'

'The girl was a Catholic. And the murdered man knew more.'

'How much more?'

'This: to find out about the treasure, the narrator had taken priest's
orders, and, of course, could not marry. And the other man, being in
love with the girl, threatened to tell, and so the lasso came in handy.
It is a Protestant story and instructive.'