Devine did not answer for a moment or two, and Brooke was sensible of a slight bewilderment as he watched him. This was, he knew, a hard, shrewd man, and yet he had apparently permitted Saxton to beguile him into buying a mine in which nobody but a man whose faculties had been destroyed by alcohol believed. He was also, it seemed, willing to risk a moderate competence in another one which was liable to be jumped at any moment. The thing was almost incomprehensible.
Then Devine made a sign that he desired attention. "When I told you this, I had a purpose," he said. "We are going to spend a pile of dollars on the Dayspring, and my part of the business lies in the city. Wilkins stays right at the Canopus, and while Allonby goes along with the mine it's too big a contract to reform him. That brings me to the point. I want a man to take charge at the Dayspring under him, and though you were not exactly civil when I made you an offer once before, we might make it worth your while."
Brooke gasped, and felt his face becoming warm.
"I have very little practical experience of mining, sir," he said.
Devine nodded tranquilly. "Allonby has enough for two, but he lets up and loses his grip when the whisky comes along," he said. "Still, I guess you have got something that's worth rather more to me. You couldn't help having it. It was born in you."
Brooke sat silent for a space, with an unpleasant realization of the fact that Devine's keen eyes were watching him. He had come there with the intention of severing his connection with the man, and now that astonishing offer had been made him in the very room he had not long ago crept into with the purpose of plundering him. Every detail of what had happened on that eventful night came back to him, and he remembered, with a sickening sense of degradation, how he had leaned upon the table where Devine was sitting then and permitted the startled girl to force her thanks on him. Then he raised his head, as Devine, turning a little, looked at him with disconcerting steadiness.
"You have more reasons than the one you gave me for not taking hold?" he said.
Suddenly, Brooke made up his mind. He was sick of the career of deception, and had already meant to put an end to it, while he now seized upon the opportunity of placing a continuance in it out of the question.
"I have, and can't help fancying that one of them is a tolerably good one," he said. "You see, you really know very little about me."
"Go on," said Devine, drily. "I'm generally quite willing to back my opinion of a mine or man. Besides, I have picked up one or two pointers about you."