“I implore you, I conjure you!” said Paul in a voice strangled by weakness. “Let them leave us together a little longer. It was by my own wish that I was left alone. I have something to say to you—something to confess. I have to ask your pardon.”
In two strides John had reached the door, but he came back without opening it.
“Why, my poor lad, what have you done to me?”
“When you let me out of the house to go in search of my sister——”
“That was long ago; we'll not talk of it now, brother.”
“But I can not die in peace without telling you. You remember that I had something to say to her?”
“Yes.”
“It was a threat. I was going to tell her that unless she gave up her way of life I should find the man who had been the cause of it and follow him up and kill him.”
“It was only a temptation of the devil, brother, and it is past; and now——”
“Don't you see what I was going to do? I was going to bring trouble and disgrace upon you also as my comrade and accomplice. That's what a man comes to when Satan——”