“I think not. The truth would come out at the trial—the whole truth—the murder and all. There’s your child, Bobby. You’ve done him enough wrong already. Do you want him—but it doesn’t matter whether you do or not—do you want him to carry through life the fact that his father was a jail-bird and a murderer, just as Jo Byndon carries the scar you made when you threw her against the door?”
“What do you want with me, then?” The man sank slowly and heavily back into the chair.
“There is a way—have you never thought of it? When you threatened others as you did me, and life seemed such a little thing in others—can’t you think?”
Bewildered, the man looked around helplessly. In the silence which followed Foyle’s words his brain was struggling to see a way out. Foyle’s further words seemed to come from a great distance.
“It’s not too late to do the decent thing. You’ll never repent of all you’ve done; you’ll never do different.”
The old, reckless, irresponsible spirit revived in the man; he had both courage and bravado; he was not hopeless yet of finding an escape from the net. He would not beg, he would struggle.
“I’ve lived as I meant to, and I’m not going to snivel or repent now. It’s all a rotten business, anyhow,” he rejoined.
With a sudden resolution the ex-sergeant put his own pistol in his pocket, then pushed Halbeck’s pistol over toward him on the table. Halbeck’s eyes lighted eagerly, grew red with excitement, then a change passed over them. They now settled on the pistol, and stayed.
He heard Foyle’s voice. “It’s with you to do what you ought to do. Of course you can kill me. My pistol’s in my pocket. But I don’t think you will. You’ve murdered one man. You won’t load your soul up with another. Besides, if you kill me, you will never get away from Kowatin alive. But it’s with you—take your choice. It’s me or you.”
Halbeck’s fingers crept out and found the pistol.