Aylmer turned up the street.
"If you think there is anything to be gained by it, say on!" he answered. "You can walk with me as far as my quarters."
"You won't ask me in?" sneered Landon. "That's more than I can expect."
"Some of the fellows might look in on me—decent fellows," explained Aylmer, drily.
Landon gave a little gasp, halted, and leaned suddenly against the wall. He looked up at his cousin. His lips worked, he stammered, he broke into a panting storm of sobs.
"I didn't deserve that! My God! I didn't deserve that!" he cried.
Aylmer looked down at him and a tiny thrill of compunction shot through him. He hesitated. He did not believe in Landon's protestations. He knew, in every instinct of his nature, that Landon was a scoundrel. But he began to remember that it had not always been so. Things that had brought them together as boys came back to him. His memory suddenly framed a picture of that wedding nine years ago. Landon had gone to meet his bride gallantly, adoringly, that day. He had loved her then. Yes, he could not have acted that, he had loved her then.
And Landon, watching narrowly his cousin's face, read the emotions as they chased each other across it as if they had been writ upon an open page. He hugged himself mentally.
"That's what knocks him!" he told himself triumphantly. "The abased ingenuous sinner! A little more of that and, Great Nicholas! I have him by the short hairs!"
He pulled himself together with a well-acted effort. He turned and drew back.