would
have risked so much. You could have swindled me in a thousand ways
before now, and done it easily, too, with small chance of being found
out. But this--this was bound to be discovered sooner or later. You must
have known that. Then why, why in heaven's name did you do it? Apart
from every other consideration, it was so infernally foolish. It wasn't
like you to do a thing like that." He paused, then suddenly clapped an
urgent hand upon the swindler's shoulder. "West," he said, "I'll swear
that you never played this game with me for your own advantage. Tell the
truth, man! Be honest with me in heaven's name! Give me the chance of
judging you fairly! It isn't much to ask."

West drew back sharply.

"Why should I be honest with you?" he demanded. "You have never been
honest with me from the very outset. I owe you nothing in that line, at
all events."

He spoke passionately still, yet not wholly without restraint. He was as
a man fighting desperate odds, and guarding some precious possession
while he fought. But these words of his were something of a revelation
to Babbacombe. He changed his ground to pursue it.

"What do you mean by that?"

"You know very well!" West flung the words from between set teeth, and
with them he abruptly turned his back upon Babbacombe, lodging his arms
upon the mantelpiece. "I am not going into details on that point or any
other. But the fact is there, and you know it. You have never been
absolutely straight in your dealings with me. I knew you weren't. I
always knew it. But how crooked you were I did not know till lately. If
you had been any other man, I believe I should have given you a broken
head for your pains. But you are so damnably courteous, as well as such
an unutterable fool!" He broke off with a hard laugh and a savage kick
at the coals in front of him. "I couldn't see myself doing it," he said,
"humbug as you are."

"And so you took this method of making me suffer?" Babbacombe suggested,
his voice very quiet and even.

"You may say so if it satisfies you," said West, without turning.

"It does not satisfy me!" There was a note of sternness in the steady
rejoinder. "It satisfies me so little that I insist upon an explanation.
Turn round and tell me what you mean."

But West stood motionless and silent, as though hewn in granite.

Babbacombe waited with that in his face which very few had ever seen
there. At last, as West remained stubborn, he spoke again:

"I suppo