“Meaning your full pardon?”
Wheeler turned a look of surprise on the speaker.
“I thought you said you hadn’t Appleby’s full confidence,” he said.
“Nor have I. I do know—as do many men—that you were pardoned with a condition, but the condition I do not know. It can’t be very galling.” And Keefe looked about on the pleasant surroundings.
“You think not? That’s because you don’t know the terms. And yet, galling though they are, hateful though it makes my life, and the lives of my wife and daughter, we would all rather bear it than to deviate one iota from the path of strict right.”
“I must admire you for that, as must any honorable man. But are there not degrees or shadings of right and wrong——”
“Mr. Keefe, as an old man, I take the privilege of advising you for your own good. All through your life I beg you remember this: Anyone who admits degrees or shadings of right or wrong—is already wrong. Don’t be offended; you didn’t claim those things, you merely asked the question. But, remember what I said about it.”
CHAPTER III
ONE LAST ARGUMENT
Adjoining the bedroom of Samuel Appleby at Sycamore Ridge was a small sitting-room, also at his disposal. Here, later that same evening he sat in confab with his two assistants.
“We leave to-morrow afternoon,” he said to Keefe and Miss Lane. “But before that, we’ve much to do. So far, we’ve accomplished nothing. I am a little discouraged but not disheartened. I still have a trump card to play, but I don’t want to use it unless absolutely necessary.”