None the less, I have failed."
"Oh, no!" she exclaimed; "not that!"
"Yes, just that. But the failure is not the worst thing that has
befallen me. I have lost or gained something that pushes the yesterdays
into a past which can never be recovered. Let me tell you, girl: I have
been fighting in the open, against treachery and deceit fighting always
under cover. I have been fighting bare-handed where others were armed.
Day by day I have been finding out the baseness and the trickery; how my
own side has used me as a screen behind which the old dishonorable
expedients could be safely planned and carried out. I never knew until
within the past two days what all this chicanery and double-dealing
might be doing to me, but now I do know."
"Will it bear telling?" she asked quietly.
"I think not--to you," he returned, matching her low tone. "Let it be
enough to say that I am no longer the man I was when I came out here.
Patricia, I'm not fighting bare-handed any more; I'm smashing in with
any weapon I can get hold of. There will be no such reform as the one
you urged me to champion--as the era of fair-dealing and sincerity which
I have been trying honestly and earnestly to inaugurate. Nevertheless,
if my hand doesn't tremble too much at the critical moment, there will
be, on the morning of next Tuesday, such a revolution as this
commonwealth has never seen.
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