“Never! Never in the world!” she cried. “Don’t tell me so, you cowardly Judas!”
“You can talk. That’s easy. But you’ve never had a rope round your neck. You’ve never awakened in the night from a dream where they were taking you out to hang you. You’ve never been hounded till your nerves were ragged and you wanted to scream out.”
“I don’t care to discuss all that. You had no business to come here. You made your choice to save yourself. That was your privilege, just as it is mine to prefer never to see you again.”
His voice rose. “Why do you say that? I’m not a leper. I’m still Larry Silcott, your friend. Say I did wrong. Don’t you suppose I’ve paid? Don’t you suppose I’ve lived in hell ever since? Have I got to spend all the rest of my life an outcast?”
She would not let herself sympathize with his wretchedness. He had betrayed the man she loved, had struck at his life. The harsh judgment of youth condemned him.
“You should have thought of that before you sold out the men who trusted you,” she told him coldly.
“I didn’t sell them out. I didn’t get a penny for it. I told the truth. That’s all,” he cried wildly.
“You had forfeited the right to tell the truth. And you did sell them out. You wouldn’t be here to-night if you hadn’t.”
Silcott shifted his defense. “I’m sick and tired of things to-night, Ruth. Let’s not quarrel,” he begged.
“I’m not quarrelling. I don’t quarrel with any one except my friends, and I’m trying to make it clear that Mr. Lawrence Silcott is not one of them. You are not welcome here, sir. I ask you to leave.”