“So do I, for your sake. I do not like to help forward a man to the gallows.”
The gallows!
At mention of that Quick felt his blood run cold. He had always considered himself courageous in a marked degree. It was that his brutal instincts blinded his reason. At bottom he was not as brave as the ordinary man.
Now he felt limp. There was no ray of hope in his mind. Why had he allowed the detective to make him a prisoner so easily?
He regretted being so docile. Better to have been shot and killed by Burt than to die on the scaffold.
The man worked himself into such a nervous condition that finally he became terror-stricken.
“Burt,” he said, “I will give you everything I possess in the world for one hour of freedom.”
“You know very well I cannot consider such an offer.”
If Burt had had the slightest doubt of the man’s guilt it vanished now. He never saw a more guilty-looking being.
Quick trembled in every limb and his knees became weak. Burt feared the fellow was going to collapse.