"Very well.... Jerry, what we are talking about now is strictly between gentlemen: do you understand?"
"Sure thing," said the collegian.
"You ask me what I am going to do, Mr. Ballard; and in return I'll ask you to put yourself in my place. Clearly, it is a law-abiding citizen's plain duty to go and lay the bald facts before the nearest prosecuting attorney and let the law take its course. On the other hand, I'm only a man like other men, and——"
"And you are Colonel Craigmiles's guest. Go on," said Ballard, straightening the path of hesitation for him.
"That's it," nodded Wingfield. "As you say, I am his guest; and—er—well, there is another reason why I should be the last person in the world to make or meddle. At first, I was brashly incredulous, as anyone would be who was mixing and mingling with the colonel in the daily amenities. Later, when the ugly fact persisted and I was obliged to admit it, the personal factor entered the equation. It's bad medicine, any way you decide to take it."
"Still you are not telling us what you mean to do, Mr. Wingfield," Bromley reminded him gently.
"No; but I don't mind telling you. I have about decided upon a weak sort of compromise. This thing will come out—it's bound to come out in the pretty immediate hence; and I don't want to be here when the sheriff arrives. I think I shall have a very urgent call to go back to New York."
Bromley laid hold of the table and pulled himself to his feet; but it was Ballard who said, slowly, as one who weighs his words and the full import of them: "Mr. Wingfield, you are more different kinds of an ass than I took you to be, and that is saying a great deal. Out of a mass of hearsay, the idle stories of a lot of workmen whose idea of humour has been to make a butt of you, you have built up this fantastic fairy tale. I am charitable enough to believe that you couldn't help it; it is a part of your equipment as a professional maker of fairy tales. But there are two things for which I shall take it upon myself to answer personally. You will not leave Castle 'Cadia until your time is out; and you'll not leave this room until you have promised the three of us that this cock-and-bull story of yours stops right here with its first telling."
"That's so," added Bromley, with a quiet menace in his tone.
It was the playwright's turn to gasp, and he did it, very realistically.