"Oh, no, you don't," snapped the other. "No one in all this world, from its very beginning, has ever hated as I hate."
"He is no friend of mine," reiterated David. "I think you know me well enough to believe that I do not lie. I have not seen him in five years."
Braddock stared hard at him. Suddenly he leaned back with a deep breath of relief. "I believe you," he said. "You don't know how to lie. Well, what are you doing here, then, mixing in my affairs?"
"We'll talk about that later on," said David. "Here is food, man. Eat. You are half-starved. Have you no money?"
"Money? Say, do you think they pay you up there? I am hungry. Not a mouthful since yesterday noon. Before I touch this grub, Joey, I want to say to you that I don't deserve it of you. I sold you all out. I wasn't square with you. But it was drink and—and that devil behind me all the time. I took your pocket-book that night, David. I stole it. I guess I was crazy most of the time in those days. I don't say I'll ever pay it back. I'm not apologizing for it, either. I'm just telling you. I meant to get all you had, but—well, I wasn't mean enough to crack you over the head. It would have been the only way—"
"Don't speak of it, Braddock," interrupted Jenison painfully. "That's all past and gone."
"I've paid for some of my sins—but not all of 'em," said Braddock. "Not all of 'em."
He fell to eating ravenously. The others sat back, stiff and uncomfortable, watching him. His sunken but powerful jaws crunched the food with some of the ferocity of a beast. It came forcefully to the minds of the two men that they were looking upon a man whose great sinews were of steel, who could have crushed either of them in the long, hard arms that stretched forth to seize the food Ruby had placed before him. They were slowly coming to realize the bent of this man's mind during its savage development in prison. He had slaved to a purpose. The same thought grew in the mind of each observer: what chance would Robert Grand have in the naked hands of his enemy?
Joey was the first to broach the subject.
"Brad," he said soothingly, "you want to think twice before you do anything desperate."