"I don't care what Mr. Haddon has said or done to you. If you can't give any better reason than that——"
"But I can," I interposed. "I am a paroled convict."
Without another word he opened the gate and drew me inside with an arm linked in mine. And he didn't speak again until he had planted me in the easiest of the big chairs before the grate fire in the cozy sitting-room, and had found a couple of pipes, filling one for me and the other for himself.
"Now, then, tell me all about it," he commanded, "You are having plenty of trouble; your face says that much. Begin back a bit and let it lead up to Mr. Zadoc Haddon as a climax, if you wish."
It had been so long since I had had a chance really to confide in anybody that I unloaded it all; the whole bitter burden of it. Whitley heard me through patiently, and when I was done, put his finger on the single omission in the story.
"You haven't told me whether you did or did not use the bank's money for your own account in the mining speculation," he said.
I shook my head. "I have learned by hard experience not to say much about that part of it."
"Why?" he asked.
"If you knew convicts you wouldn't ask. They will all tell you that they were innocent of the crimes for which they were sentenced."
He smoked in silence for a minute or two and then said: "You are not a criminal, Weyburn."