"I'll tell you why you lied," Blount went on, less harshly. "It was
because you were told to. Isn't that so?"
Collins nodded.
Reaching out quickly, Blount laid a hand on the young man's knee. "Fred,
what do you think of a soldier who takes his pay from one side and
fights on the other? That is what you've been doing, you know; it is
what you did when you put a dozen sheets of blank paper into an envelope
the other day--the day I sent you to get a file of letters marked
'private' from the safe."
The culprit drew away from the touch of the hand on his knee, and there
was fear, and behind the fear the courage of desperation, in his eyes
when he lifted them.
"You can give me the third degree if you want to, Mr. Blount, but as
long as I've got the breath to say no, I'll never tell you the next
thing you're going to ask me!"
Blount sprang up and went to stand at the window. There was a street
arc-lamp swinging in its high sling some distance below the window
level, its scintillant spark changing weirdly to blue and green and back
to blinding orange, and he stared so steadily at it that his eyes were
full of tears when he turned to look down upon the waiting culprit.
"No, Collins; I'm not going to ask you the name of the other master for
whom you have thrown me down," he said gravely; and then: "That's
all--you may go now.
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