"Rats!"
"I don't feel as though I ought to."
Bojo, watching his struggle with his conscience a moment, perceived the inherent weakness at the bottom of his nature, suddenly feeling a sense of distance intervening in the old friendship, sadly disillusioned. When he spoke, it was abruptly, as a superior:
"Shut up, Fred—you're going to take it, and that's all!
"How can I thank you?
He turned on his heel and went back to his room to hide the flash of scorn that came to his eyes. "Great Heavens," he thought, "is that the way men behave under great tests?"
But all at once he added, "And myself?"
For at the bottom there was an uneasy stirring feeling, awakened by the sudden incredulous laugh of his friends that had greeted his assertion of Drake's innocence, which was bringing him to a realization that he was to face a decision more profoundly significant to his own self-esteem than any he had yet confronted.
"Thank heaven for one thing—nothing happened to Fred! That's settled. I have nothing on my conscience," he said with a sigh. The ten thousand he had added represented in a confused way a tribute to that conscience, to those others, unknown and unvisualized, whom unwittingly he might have caused to suffer.