Lansdale was not the man to bruise his hands with much beating upon the barred doors of any one's confidence. So he said, "I'm done. It's between you and your conscience,—if you haven't eliminated that with the other things. But I had hoped you'd see fit to defend yourself. The eternal query is sharp enough without the pointing of particular instances."
Jeffard squared himself, with his elbows on the table.
"Do you want an hypothesis, too?—as another man did? Take this, and make the most of it. You knew me and my lacks and havings. You knew that I had reached a point at which I would have pawned my soul for the wherewithal to purchase a short hour or two of forgetfulness. Hold that picture in your mind, and conceive that a summer of unsuccessful prospecting had not changed me for better or worse. Is the point of view unobstructed?"
"The point of view is your own, not mine," Lansdale objected. "And, moreover, the summer did change you, because advancement in some direction is an irrefrangible law. But go on."
"I will. This man whom you have in mind was suddenly brought face to face with a great temptation,—great and subtle. Garvin drove the tunnel on the Midas three years ago and abandoned it as worthless. It was my curiosity which led to the discovery of the gold. It was I who took the sample to the assayer and carried the news of the bonanza to Garvin. I might have kept the knowledge to myself, but I didn't. Why? do you ask? I don't know—perhaps because it didn't occur to me. What followed Bartrow has told you, but not all. Let us assume that the race to Aspen was made in good faith; that this man who had put honor and good report behind him really meant to stand between a drunken fool and the fate he was rushing upon. Can you go so far with me?"
Lansdale nodded. He was spellbound, but it was the artist in him and not the man who hung breathless upon the edge of expectancy.
"Very well; now for the crux. This man knelt behind a locked door and heard himself execrated by the man he was trying to save; heard the first kindly impulse he had yielded to in months distorted into a desperate plan to rob the cursing maniac. Is it past belief that he crept away from the locked door and sat down to ask himself in hot resentment why he should go on? Is it not conceivable that he should have begun to give ear to the plea of self-preservation?—to say to himself that if the maniac were no better than a lost man it was no reason that the treasure should be lost also?"
It was altogether conceivable, and Lansdale nodded again. Jeffard found a cigar and went on while he was clipping the end of it.
"But that was not all. Picture this man at the crumbling point of resolution tiptoeing to the door to listen again. He has heard enough to convince him that the miracle of fortune will be worse than wasted upon the drunken witling. Now he is to hear that the besotted fool has already transferred whatever right he had in the Midas to the two despoilers; signed a quitclaim, sold his miracle for a drink or two of whiskey, more or less. Are you listening?"