If you are fool enough to offer me another chance, as you
call it, I am not fool enough to take it. The only thing I'll take from
you is justice. Understand?"
"You wish me to prosecute?" Babbacombe said.
"I do!"
The words came with passionate force. West stood in almost a threatening
attitude. His eyes shone in the gathering dusk like the eyes of a
crouching beast--a beast that has been sorely wounded, but that will
fight to the last.
The man's whole demeanour puzzled Babbacombe--his total lack of shame or
penitence, his savagery of resentment. There was something behind it
all--something he could not fathom, that baffled him, however he sought
to approach it. In days gone by he had wondered if the fellow had a
heart. That wonder was still in his mind. He himself had utterly failed
to reach it if it existed. And Cynthia--even Cynthia--had failed. Yet,
somehow, vaguely, he had a feeling that neither he nor Cynthia had
understood.
"I don't know what to say to you, West," he said at length.
"Why say anything?" said West.
"Because," Babbacombe said slowly, "I don't believe--I can't
believe--that simply for the sake of a paltry sum like that you would
have risked so much. You could have swindled me in a thousand ways
before now, and done it easily, too, with small chance of being found
out. But this--this was bound to be discovered sooner or later.
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