“You could, if you’d had any nerve,” snarled Louden Powers. “But you never could see a thing through. You are all right at the beginning. But you haven’t the pluck to stay with a thing to the end. You’re like a wet firecracker. There’s a whiz and a puff, and you’re done! You make me sick, T. Burton Potter!”
Potter smiled. He did not care what was said, now that the truth had come out.
“Then, if this guy’s name is Potter, the other one must be——” began Bonesy Billings.
Nick held up a hand to silence him. Then he whispered to Bessie Silvius.
“Yes, Mr. Carter,” she answered aloud. “I believe he’ll know me. I’ll try him.”
She stepped over to the man who had spent so long a time in the Universal Hospital, and laid a hand on his arm. He started and looked at her.
“Bob!” she whispered. “Don’t you know me?”
It was very difficult for him to draw his senses together, but it could be seen that her voice had touched a responsive chord in his being. He held out his hand to her.
As she took it, he murmured brokenly:
“Bob Gordon? Yes, that is what they call me. But—but—it isn’t quite right. How is it—Bessie?”