Instantly Rogers was another man—tense, slightly crouching as though about to spring, his eyes blazing, on his face the fierce look of the haunted creature that knows it is cornered and that intends to fight to the last. A swift hand jerked open a drawer of the table, and stretched toward David. In it was a revolver.
David sprang to his feet and stepped back. Rogers glared at him for a moment, and for that moment David expected anything. Then suddenly Rogers said, "What a fool!—to be thinking of that!" and tossed the pistol into the open drawer.
Defiantly erect, he folded his arms, his fierce pallor suggestive of white heat, his eyes open furnace-doors of passion.
"Well, you've got me!" he said, with strange guttural harshness. "I've been expecting this minute for ten years. What're you going to do? Expose me, or blackmail me?"
David got back his breath. "I don't understand. Halpin told me he didn't think the police were after you."
"They're not. I don't owe the State a minute."
"Then why do you talk of exposure?"
"You understand—perfectly!" His words were a blast of furnace-hot ferocity. "You know what would happen if my clients learned I'm an ex-convict. They'd take every house from me—I'd again be an outcast. You know this; you know you've got your teeth in my throat. Well—I'll pay blood-money. I have paid it. A police captain found me out, and for five years sucked my blood—every cent I made—till he died. I'll pay again—I can't help myself. How much do you want?—blood-sucker!"
These hot words, filled with supremest rage and despair, thrilled David infinitely; he felt the long struggle, the tragedy, behind them.
"You mistake me," he cried. "I've told you what I have because I thought to tell was my duty to you. Betray you, or accept money for silence—I never could! Surely you know I never could!"