This confession from Dick’s lips made Brad feel better. Why, here was Dick, who had detected him on the point of filching the votes—Dick had been tempted and had fallen. Dick was not holding himself coldly above Brad as his moral superior; instead, he freely acknowledged that he had stumbled.
Buckhart’s feelings about the affair began to undergo a change. A little while before he had been thinking of his roommate as looking down on him in pity from a moral height far above him; but now Dick had made it plain that he had no thought or desire to exalt himself in the least.
“You may be right,” said Brad.
“I know I am,” came positively from Dick’s lips. “You will see it in the same light when you are cooler. Besides, there was another reason why I could not afford to let you get rid of those votes.”
“What other reason?”
“I saw you—I knew what you had done.”
“Well?”
“With that knowledge, had I permitted you to work the scheme, I should have been just as guilty as you. It was to save myself from regret and shame, as well as you, that I told you you must put the votes back.”
This confession drew Brad still closer to his friend. In all these things Dick was perfectly honest with his companion, and the Texan trusted and relied in him.
“I never thought of it that way,” he said.