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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 suppose you have found out my original reason for giving you a fresh start in life, and you resent my having kept it a secret.”

“I resent the reason.” West tossed the words over his shoulder as though he uttered them against his will.

“Are you sure even now that you know what that reason was?” Babbacombe asked.

“I am sure of one thing!” West spoke quickly, vehemently, as a man shaken by some inner storm. “Had I been in your place–had the woman I wanted to marry asked me to bring back into her life some worthless scamp to whom she had taken a sentimental fancy when she was scarcely out of the schoolroom, I’d have seen him damned first, and myself too–had I been in your place. I would have refused pointblank, even if it had meant the end of everything.”

“I believe you would,” Babbacombe said. The sternness had gone out of his voice, and a certain weariness had taken its place. “But you haven’t quite hit the truth of the matter. Since you have guessed so much you had better know the whole. I did not do this thing by request. I undertook it voluntarily. If I had not done so, some other means–possibly some less discreet means–would have been employed to gain the same end.”

“I see!” West’s head was bent. He seemed to be closely examining the marble on which his arms rested. “Well,” he said abruptly, “you’ve told me the truth. I will do the same to you. This business has got to end. I have done my part towards bringing that about. And now you must do yours. You will have to prosecute, whether you like it or not. It is the only way.”

“What?” Babbacombe said sharply.

West turned at last. The glare had gone out of his eyes–they were cold and still as an Arctic sky.

“I think we understand one another,” he said. “I see you don’t like your job. But you’ll stick to it, for all that. There must be an end–a painless end if possible, without regrets. She has got to realise that I’m a swindler to the marrow of my bones, that I couldn’t turn to and lead a decent, honourable life–even for love of her.”