“I want to shake hands with you, Morgan,” said Nick. “I want to shake hands with the man who came into my house and who is on the point of going out of it now—the real man, you know.”
“Nit!” said Morgan. “Your hand is an honest hand; mine is not. They are no more fit to mate together than a negro and a white. Nit. I’m obliged to you all the same. Good-night.”
“Wait, Morgan.”
“Well?”
“I am a fairly good reader of character.”
“I suppose you are. What of it?”
“I want you to tell me just why you have taken all this trouble to save Mercedes Danton from the conspiracy which overshadows her life—for I know that you came here for that purpose and not for the one you have given—to warn me.”
“Tell me why you think that,” said Morgan hoarsely.
“I don’t think it; I know it. I knew it by the sound of your voice and by the look in your eyes when you spoke of her.”
“All right, I’ll tell you, and that will end our conversation for the day. Once upon a time I worked six months on plans and preparations to rob Linden Fells. That was six years ago, when Mercedes Danton was only a girl of thirteen or fourteen, I think. My plans worked all right and I had the whole layout ready to my hand—I would have got away with a cool forty thousand, sure; but—well, that little girl woke up and sat up in her bed when I entered her room. It was a clear night and the moon was full. It shone straight in at the windows of her room and upon her white frightened face—no, not frightened, just startled. I stood a little back in the shadow, but she was in the full light, and there wasn’t shadow enough so but what she saw me very plainly.”