“But you were ready to wring his everlasting neck a short time ago. You announced your intention of kicking him out of Yale.”
“And you could have done it, all right,” put in Carker. “He heard the rumbling of the approaching earthquake, and he——”
“Oh, choke that earthquake business!” cut in Ready. “Don’t use the expression; reserve it for your socialistic lectures.”
“Fellows,” said Frank, “I admit that I was ready and resolved to crush Dade Morgan a short time ago.”
“But you have not crushed him,” spoke Hodge. “Why was it? Tell us. We want to know.”
“I cannot explain everything, for it will take too much time if I do; but I will say this much, I discovered that Morgan was not wholly responsible for his actions toward me. Another will than his own controlled and directed him. This may seem too remarkable to be true, but it is a fact. The one who controlled him hated me with a hatred that only death could terminate. If Morgan rebelled, this monster put on the screws and forced his tool to perform his work. Mind you, I do not claim that Dade Morgan naturally would be perfect or even a fine fellow; but he was led to the very verge of murder by the wretch who impelled him to his acts. Morgan in his right mind and being his own master would never have gone that far.”
“Perhaps not,” muttered Hodge; “but I believe he’d do anything.”
“I think,” Merry pursued, “that there came a time when Morgan was anxious to cease troubling me. I have thought the whole matter over, and I have decided that I know when that time arrived. Then it was that the monster behind him put on the screws and forced him forward against his will.”
“And if you do not wind Morgan up,” said Dashleigh, “may not this same monster continue his dirty work?”
Frank shook his head, with a strange, grim smile of satisfaction.