Dave's tone was the tone Truscott had always known. It was kindly, it was strong with honesty and purpose. He felt easier for it, and his relief sounded in his reply.
"I can't complain," he said, settling himself more comfortably in his chair.
"I'm glad," said Dave simply. "I was doubtful of the experiment, but—well, I'm glad. And——?"
Suddenly Jim sprang to his feet and began to pace the room. Dave watched him. He was reading him. He was studying the nervous movements, and interpreting them as surely as though their meaning were written large in the plainest lettering. It was the same man he had known five years ago—the same, only with a difference. He beheld the weakness he had realized before, but now, where there had been frank honesty in all his movements and expressions, there was a furtive undercurrent which suggested only too clearly the truth of the stories told about him.
"Dave," he burst out at last, coming to a sudden stand in front of him. "I've come to you about Betty. I've come to you to tell you all the regret I have at that meeting of ours on the bridge, and all I said at the time. I want to tell you that I'm a rotten fool and blackguard. That I haven't been near Betty since I came back. I was to have gone to tea that afternoon, and didn't do so because I got blind drunk instead, and when her uncle came to fetch me I told him to go to hell, and insulted him in a dozen ways. I want to tell you that while I was away I practically forgot Betty, I didn't care for her any longer, that I scarcely even regarded our engagement as serious. I feel I must tell you this. And now it is all changed. I have seen her and I want her. I love her madly, and—and I have spoiled all my chances. She'll never speak to me again. I am a fool and a crook—an utter wrong 'un, but I want her. I must have her!"
The man paused breathlessly. His words carried conviction. His manner was passion-swept There could be no doubt as to his sincerity, or of the truth of the momentary remorse conveyed in his self-accusation.
Dave's teeth shut tight upon his pipe-stem.
"And you did all that?" he inquired with a tenseness that made his voice painfully harsh.
"Yes, yes, I did. Dave, you can't say any harder things to me than I've said to myself. When I drink there's madness in my blood that drives me where it will."
The other suddenly rose from his seat and towered over him. The look on his rugged face was one of mastery. His personality dominated Truscott at that moment in a manner that made him shrink before his steady, luminous eyes.