"I am only too glad that I had a chance to have a hand in the matter," said Burton, "but the chances are that the mystery would soon have been solved, in any event. Ben was getting too confident, and therefore reckless."
"It was the check you gave him that made him reckless. Of course he is insane. Such a long, brooding course of revenge for a boyish quarrel is clear proof of insanity. But the insanity might have remained latent for years if he had not been crossed. No, you can't get out of it. You will have to reconcile yourself to being regarded as a benefactor."
"Well, perhaps I can stand it, mixed in with some other memories I shall have to take away with me," said Burton grimly. Leslie had not appeared, and he knew what was yet before him. "I had a bad time getting away from you yesterday when you wanted to make me stay and tell you what I was doing. I wasn't sure I was doing anything! I felt like a boy who is speculating whether the Fourth-of-July mud can which he is watching is really dead or only sleeping. If my mud can should go off, I could see that the effect would be wholly satisfying. On the other hand, it might be a mud can, only that and nothing more, and nothing could be more humiliating than to be sedulously watching a mud can which might safely be given to children who cry for it."
The doctor laughed. "The explosion was fully up to the claims of the prospectus."
"There's another matter that I am still somewhat in doubt about," said Burton seriously. "That's Selby's death. I said to Miss Underwood yesterday that I hoped Henry wouldn't shoot Selby when he heard of his engagement to Miss Hadley. I am fairly certain that Mrs. Bussey heard me and repeated the remark to Ben. Also, it seems that I precipitated a quarrel between Ben and Selby about the price of his work. Taking these things together, how far am I responsible for Selby's death?"
The doctor turned to look at him questioningly. "Don't blame yourself for things you only touch at that distance," he said abruptly. "If the little gods use us as instruments to carry out their plans, we have to take that lot with the rest. Perhaps there is justice in their schemes. We all have to take our chances in this skirmishing that we call life,--and death isn't the worst that might happen."
"No," said Burton, with a sigh.
The doctor continued to observe him scrutinizingly, but he spoke lightly. "Henry gave me a bad quarter of an hour last night," he said, wrinkling his face in his old, funny grimace. "When I found he had disappeared I thought for a while that my worst nightmares of these past years had come true. That brilliant watch of Watson's didn't even know he was gone. The boy may be--well, a problem, but no one ever suggested he didn't have spirit enough to climb a tree."
"He will be all right after this. He has been worried by the surrounding atmosphere of suspicion into appearing as a problem, that's all. If that little fool--I beg a thousand pardons. That isn't what I was going to talk about. I intended to say that if your new daughter-in-law, who is a very beautiful girl with a sweet nature, will only praise him enough,--and I think that is likely to be her role,--he will probably be not only happy but good. The poor boy needs coddling."
The doctor listened with the glimmer of a smile under his seriousness.