“No. Why should I?”
“Man, you ask me that? You leave him free to go yonder and make her life a burden?”
“I did not say so,” replied Brettison calmly. “Suppose I had handed the man over to the authorities, what then? The news would have been in every paper of the convict’s marvellous escape from death. Pleasant reading for the Bourne Square breakfast table. Surely that poor girl has suffered enough?”
Stratton gazed at him wildly.
“I thought it all out, and I said to myself: ‘James Dale, or Barron, died that night to the world, when he escaped from the convict prison. Why should I bring him to life? For everyone’s sake, let him be dead still.’”
“Impossible!” cried Stratton. “The man will take advantage of his freedom, and Myra’s position must become intolerable. You have done wrong, sir. He must be given up at once.”
“But the knowledge of what has passed must reach Myra’s ears, and the pain and agony of spirit it will cause will be more than she can bear.”
Stratton groaned.
“And don’t you see you are cutting the last piece of ground from beneath your feet—letting yourself sink at once into a slough of despond?”
“Don’t tempt me, man!” cried Stratton angrily. “Heaven knows how weak I am, and how gladly I would fall in with your ideas, but they are impossible. You must be mad to propose them.”