“I'm afraid I sacrificed you, Loudon,” he said, looking at me pitifully.
“Sacrificed me?” I repeated. “How? What do you mean by sacrifice?”
“I know it'll shock your delicate self-respect,” he said; “but what was I to do? Things looked so bad. The receiver——” (as usual, the name stuck in his throat, and he began afresh). “There was a lot of talk; the reporters were after me already; there was the trouble and all about the Mexican business; and I got scared right out, and I guess I lost my head. You weren't there, you see, and that was my temptation.”
I did not know how long he might thus beat about the bush with dreadful hintings, and I was already beside myself with terror. What had he done? I saw he had been tempted; I knew from his letters that he was in no condition to resist. How had he sacrificed the absent?
“Jim,” I said, “you must speak right out. I've got all that I can carry.”
“Well,” he said—“I know it was a liberty—I made it out you were no business man, only a stone-broke painter; that half the time you didn't know anything anyway, particularly money and accounts. I said you never could be got to understand whose was whose. I had to say that because of some entries in the books——”
“For God's sake,” I cried, “put me out of this agony! What did you accuse me of?”
“Accuse you of?” repeated Jim. “Of what I'm telling you. And there being no deed of partnership, I made out you were only a kind of clerk that I called a partner just to give you taffy; and so I got you ranked a creditor on the estate for your wages and the money you had lent. And——”
I believe I reeled. “A creditor!” I roared; “a creditor! I'm not in the bankruptcy at all?”
“No,” said Jim. “I know it was a liberty——”