“With that gun?”
“With nought but a savage heart an’ my two fistes. The gun belongs to Sam Bonus. Leastways it did, but ’t is mine now—or yours, as the party most wronged.”
“Come this way and drink a drop of brandy before you go home. Glad you had some fighting as you wanted it so bad. I know what it feels like to be that way, too. But there wouldn’t have been blows between us. My mind was made up. I wrote to Plymouth this afternoon. I wrote, and an hour later decided not to post the letter. I’ve changed my intentions altogether, because the point begins to appear in a new light. I’m sorry for a good few things that have happened of late years.”
Will breathed hard a moment; then he spoke slowly and not without more emotion than his words indicated.
“That’s straight speech—if you mean it. I never knawed how ’t was that a sportsman, same as you be, could keep rakin’ awver a job an’ drive a plain chap o’ the soil like me into hell for what I done ten year agone.”
“Let the past go. Forget it; banish it for all time as far as you have the power. Blame must be buried both sides. Here’s the letter upon my desk. I’ll burn it, and I’ll try to burn the memory often years with it. Your road’s clear for me.”
“Thank you,” said Blanchard, very slowly. “I lay I’ll never hear no better news than that on this airth. Now I’m free—free to do how I please, free to do it undriven.”
There was a long silence. Grimbal poured out half a tumbler of brandy, added soda water, then handed the stimulant to Will; and Blauchard, after drinking, sat in comfort a while, rubbed his swollen jaw, and scraped the dried blood of Bonus off his hands.
“Why for did you chaange so sudden?” he asked, as Grimbal turned to his desk.
“I could tell you, but it doesn’t matter. A letter in the mind looks different to one on paper; and duty often changes its appearance, too, when a man is honest with himself. To be honest with yourself is the hardest sort of honesty. I’ve had speech with others about this—my brother more particularly.”