“I saw him on the floor,” he said slowly, and staggered a little.
“Then you don't even know you did it.”
“I hated him.”
But Bassett saw that his determination to surrender himself was weakening. Bassett fought it with every argument he could summon, and at last he brought forward the one he felt might be conclusive.
“You see, you've not only made a man's place in the world, Clark, as I've told you. You've formed associations you can't get away from. You've got to think of the Livingstones, and you told me yesterday a shock would kill the old man. But it's more than that. There's a girl back in your town. I think you were engaged to her.”
But if he had hoped to pierce the veil with that statement he failed. Dick's face flushed, and he went to the door of the cabin, much as he had gone to the window the day before. He did not look around when he spoke.
“Then I'm an unconscionable cad,” he said. “I've only cared for one woman in my life. And I've shipwrecked her for good.”
“You mean—”
“You know who I mean.”
Sometime later Bassett got on his horse and rode out to a ledge which commanded a long stretch of trail in the valley below. Far away horsemen were riding along it, one behind the other, small dots that moved on slowly but steadily. He turned and went back to the cabin.