"This is dreadful business," said he, as we met, face to face, half an hour afterward. He did not look me steadily in the eyes.
"It is horrible!" I answered. "To corrupt and ruin a young man, and then murder him! There are few deeds in the catalogue of crime blacker than this!"
"It was done in the heat of passion," said the landlord, with something of an apology in his manner. "Green never meant to kill him."
"In peaceful intercourse with his fellow-men, why did he carry a deadly weapon? There was murder in his heart, sir."
"That is speaking very strongly."
"Not stronger than the facts will warrant," I replied. "That Green is a murderer in heart, it needed not this awful consummation to show. With a cool, deliberate purpose, he has sought, from the beginning, to destroy young Hammond."
"It is hardly fair," answered Slade, "in the present feverish excitement against Green, to assume such a questionable position. It may do him a great wrong."
"Did Willy Hammond speak only idle words, when he accused Green of having followed him like a thirsty bloodhound?—of having robbed, and cheated, and debased him from the beginning?"
"He was terribly excited at the moment."
"Yes," said I, "no ear that heard his words could for an instant doubt that they were truthful utterances, wrung from a maddened heart."