Dick bowed his head in his hands. "I don't understand."
Stubbornly Jack pursued his message to Dick. "She doesn't love me. I thought I had won her, but she married me with your image in her heart. She married me, yet all the while you were the man she loved—you—you—and in the end I found it out."
Jack's voice sank almost into a whisper as he finished his revelation to Dick, who raised his head and cried: "And yet she broke her faith with me—"
Jack arose in his misery. His task was harder than he expected. Dick was forcing him to tell all without concealing even the smallest trifle of his shame.
"She thought—you were dead. I never told her otherwise. I lied to her—I lied to her."
"She never knew?" asked Dick joyfully. "The letter—?"
"I never gave it to her," answered Jack simply.
Dick leaped to his feet, pulling his revolver from his holster. "And I thought her false to her trust!" He aimed his gun at Payson's heart. "I ought to kill you for this!"
Jack spread out his arms and calmly replied: "I'm ready."
Dick dropped his gun and slipped it into the holster with a gesture of despair. "But it's too late now, too late!"