“She was quite right. You haven’t repented, in the sense that you are sorry for what you have done. You were merely tired of one thing and so took up another, forgetting that in this game of life he who plays must also pay.”
“I am paying now, at any rate.”
“No, you are not; you are only suffering the consequences of not having paid.”
Brant made more turns in the narrow walkway, and scowled and frowned and otherwise gave signs that the friendly knife had cut deep. It is not every man who can probe his own wound, but this man did it, as his silence-breaking word declared:
“Tell me what I am to do, Forsyth, and I’ll do it if it shortens my life.”
“The thing that you have to do makes for longevity. It is merely to settle down in humdrum good behaviour and wait.”
“For how long?”
The editor shrugged. “Quien sabe? Till the price is paid. Society will let you know when it believes you are to be trusted.”
Brant sat down again and jammed his hands deep into his pockets. “Wait, you say. That is the one thing I can’t do. Set me any task, however desperate, that I can do and have done with it, and I am your man. But the waiting game will first drive me mad and then kill me.”
“No, it won’t. Other men have had it to do.”