"Why did you do it?"
"That's just it, old man. It was habit, I guess. It was just the line of least resistance. It was the quickest way out of a box—I didn't think, and bang!—first thing I knew I'd gone and done it! I'm a good deal older than you, Harrie, I'm twenty-one. I was a pretty bad kid until Prof. and Mrs. Brewster got hold of me. I've managed to get most of the worst devils under. And I thought I had the lie-devil under. I haven't told a lie for two years. But I didn't have him under, Harrie. When I least expected him, there he was. I guess I haven't been as unhappy for a good many years as I was yesterday and to-day."
Dick Harrington floundered helplessly for words—"I never thought——"
"I was getting pretty cocky about my own goodness, I guess," Burton went on quietly. "That's why I got it in the neck this way. But it took the sand right out of me. It seemed that all the years of tussle were in vain and I wasn't worth a little yaller dog's respect, and here the school was looking to me to do big things. It took it right out of me, Harrie. Do you know what was the trouble with the first two periods of the game to-day?"
"The team lost their heads, and then you bucked 'em up and won the game. The fellows told me."
"That sounds good, old man. But the trouble was that I couldn't get my mind down on the game. I was all the time thinking of that algebra class and that lie. I thought of it out on the field and mixed up the plays. That was the reason for those two first periods."
Dick Harrington sat bolt upright. "Really? Really?" he exclaimed.
"Instead of trying to win the game, I was all the time trying to puzzle out what I could do to wipe out that Lie. It wasn't square to the team, it wasn't square to the school, but there it was. There was that Lie. I tried to laugh at myself, but that didn't do any good. There was that Lie. I tried to curse myself out, but that didn't do any good. There was that Lie, sitting in my heart."
Dick stared at him through the darkness with burning eyes. "Then what happened?" he cried in a low voice.
"I dunno exactly, Harrie," Burton answered, speaking very slowly. "Suddenly I just found that I was thinking of you."