"Don't take it like that, Arty," he said.
The other's hand stretched out blindly toward the voice. "Ah, great God, Paul!"
"I know! Perhaps I've brooded too much." Warrington crushed the hand in his two strong ones. "The main fault was mine. I couldn't see the length of my nose. I threw a temptation in your way which none but a demi-god could have resisted. That night, when I got your note telling me what you had done, I did a damnably foolish thing. I went to the club-bar and drank heavily. I was wild to help you, but I couldn't see how. At two in the morning I thought I saw the way. Drunken men get strange ideas into their heads. You were the apple of the mother's eyes; I was only her son. No use denying it. She worshiped you; tolerated me. I came back to the house, packed up what I absolutely needed, and took the first train west. It all depended upon what you'd do. You let me go, Arty, old boy. I suppose you were pretty well knocked up, when you learned what I had done. And then you let things drift. It was only natural. I had opened the way for you. Mother, learning that I was a thief, restored the defalcation to save the family honor, which was your future. We were always more or less hard-pressed for funds. I did not gamble, but I wasted a lot. The mother gave us an allowance of five thousand each. To this I managed to add another five and you another four. You were always borrowing from me. I never questioned what you did with it. I would to God I had! It would have saved us a lot of trouble."
The hand in his relaxed and slipped from the clasp.
"Some of these things will sound bitter, but the heart behind them isn't. So I did what I thought to be a great and glorious thing. I was sober when I reached Chicago. I saw my deed from another angle. Think of it; we could have given our joint note to mother's bank for the amount. Old Henderson would have discounted it in a second. It was too late. I went on. The few hundreds I had gave out. I've been up against it pretty hard. There were times when I envied the pariah-dog. But fortune came around one day, knocked, and I let her in. I returned to make a restitution, only to learn that it had been made by you, long ago. A trick of young Elmore's. I shouldn't have come back if I could have sent the money."
Arthur raised his head and sat up. "Ah, why did you not write? Why did you not let me know where you were? God is my witness, if there is a corner of this world unsearched for you. For two years I had a man hunting. He gave up. I believed you dead."
"Dead? Well, I was in a sense."
"You have suffered, but not as I have. Always you had before you your great, splendid, foolish sacrifice. I had nothing to buoy me up; there was only the drag of the recollection of an evil deed, and a moment of pitiful weakness. The temptation was too great, Paul."
"How did it happen?"
"How does anything like that happen? Curiosity drew me first, for at college I never played but a few games of bridge. Curiosity, desire, then the full blaze of the passion. You will never know what that is, Paul. It is stronger than love, or faith, or honor. God knows I never thought myself weak; at school I was the least impetuous of the two. Everything went, and they cheated me from the start. Roulette and faro. Then I put my hand in the safe. To this day I can not tell why. I owed nothing to those despicable thieves, Craig least of all."