The colonel moved up a step closer to the door. Elmer wondered whether he meant to throw open the barrier and hold the two scoundrels up as they came forth. But he mistook the action of the old gentleman.
"Phil!" he said, quietly.
"Yes, sir," answered the gruff tones from within, but no longer filled with a savage brutality, for Elmer could detect a quaver as of strong emotion. Perhaps it may have been the mention of that old mother whose heart would be broken when her boy was sent to prison for a long term. And somehow Elmer found himself hanging on the next words of the gentleman with an eagerness which he could hardly understand—for it seemed to him that a human soul was trembling in the balance.
"Listen to me, Phil," continued the colonel. "What if I gave you one more chance to make good; do you think you could keep your pledge, if you gave it to me, never to take a single drop again as long as you live? Are you strong enough to do this for the sake of that old mother of yours?"
There was an inarticulate sound from within. It might have been Phil talking to himself; but Elmer was more inclined to believe something else—that the strong man was almost overwhelmed by the magnanimity of the gentleman whom he had once served, and whose kindness of the past he had returned so meanly.
"How about it, Phil?" continued the colonel. "Shall I 'phone in to town and have the police come out here to take you into custody, or are you ready to put your signature to a pledge for me to hold?"
"I'll do it, kunnel, I'll do it, and thank yuh a thousand times for the chanct!" broke out the man. "Oh, what a crazy fool I was to go agin the best friend I ever had! I'll sign anything yuh arsks me tuh, an' I'll keep it, too, or die atryin'!"
"I'm glad to hear you say that, Phil," went on the colonel, with a low laugh. "You were a good gardener up to the time you began to booze and neglect your work My new man proved a failure, and I've let him go. The job's open, Phil!"
"For me?" cried the man, as though utterly unable to believe his ears. "D'ye mean, kunnel, yu'd dar take me back agin, arter the way I been actin'?"
"Oh, we'll try and forget all that, Phil. It wasn't you, but the devil you took inside, that made you act that way. And since you're never going to give way to the tempter again I guess I'll risk the chances."