During the recital that followed somewhat later David did not move. He
sat silent, his eyes closed, his face set.
"That's about all," Bassett finished. "He had been perfectly clear in
his head all day, and it took headwork to get over the pass. But, as I
say, he had simply dropped ten years, and was back to the Lucas trouble.
I tried everything I knew, used your name and would have used the young
lady's, because sometimes that sort of thing strikes pretty deep, but
I didn't know it. He was convinced after a while, but he was dazed, of
course. He knew it, that is, but he couldn't comprehend it.
"I was done up, and I've cursed myself for it since, but I must have
slept like the dead. I wakened once, early in the night, and he was
still sitting by the fire, staring at it. I've forgotten to say that he
had been determined all day to go back and give himself up, and the only
way I prevented it was by telling him what a blow it would be to you and
to the girl. I wakened once and said to him, 'Better get some sleep, old
man.' He did not answer at once, and then he said, 'All right.' I was
dozing off when he spoke again. He said, 'Where is Beverly Carlysle now?
Has she married again?' 'She's revived "The Valley," and she's in New
York with it,' I told him.
"When I wakened in the morning he was gone, but he'd left a piece of
paper in a cleft stick beside me, with directions for reaching the
railroad, and--well, here it is."
Bassett took from his pocket-book a note, and passed it over to David,
who got out his spectacles with shaking hands and read it. It was on
Dick's prescription paper, with his name at the top and the familiar Rx
below it. David read it aloud, his voice husky.
"Many thanks for everything, Bassett," he read. "I don't like to leave
you, but you'll get out all right if you follow the map on the back
of this. I've had all night to think things out, and I'm leaving you
because you are safer without me. I realize now what you've known all
day and kept from me. That woman at the hotel recognized me, and they
are after me.
"I can't make up my mind what to do. Ultimately I think I'll go back and
give myself up. I am a dead man, anyhow, to all who might have cared,
but I've got to do one or two things first, and I want to think things
over. One thing you've got a right to know. I hated Lucas, but it never
entered my head to kill him. How it happened God only knows. I don't."