Nelson Floyd stared at the floor and slowly nodded his head.
“I'm caught in a more degrading trap than the one Wade set for me,” he declared, bitterly. “My acts have branded me as a coward and left me without power to vindicate myself. That's one of the ways Providence has of punishing a poor devil. A man may have a good impulse, but can't act upon it owing to the restrictions laid on him by his very sins.”
Pole looked down into the store.
“Nevermind,” he said, gloomily. “Wade's gone.”
Floyd dropped the revolver into the drawer of the bureau, and went back to his desk.
“It's only a question of time, Pole,” he said. “He suspects me now, but is not sure. It won't be long before the full story will reach him, and then we'll have to meet. As far as I am concerned, I'd rather have had it over with. I've swallowed a bitter pill this mornin', Pole.”
“Well, it wasn't a lead one.” Baker's habitual sense of humor was rising to the surface. “Most any sort o' physic's better'n cold metal shoved into the system through its own hole.”
There was a step in the store. Pole looked down again.
“It's old Mayhew,” he said. “I'm powerful glad he was late this mornin', Nelson. The old codger would have seed through that talk.”
“Yes, he would have seen through it,” answered Floyd, despondently, as he opened a big ledger and bent over it. Mayhew trudged towards them, his heavy cane knocking against the long dry-goods counter.