He sent the girl to me and asked me to put her in
the way of earning her own living. It was a sacred charge, that, and I
accepted it willingly. The only trouble was that I was leaving for Europe
the next day. I put a thousand dollars in the bank for her, found her a
comfortable home with respectable people, and then considered in what
office I could place her during my absence. I had the misfortune to meet
you that morning. Time was short. Every one knew that your office was
conducted on sound business lines. I told you her story and you took her.
I hadn't an idea that a man alive could be such a villain as you turned
out to be."
"You'd be a fine fellow, Wingate," Phipps said, with a touch of his old
cynicism, "if you weren't always sheering off towards the melodramatic.
The girl wanted to see life, she attracted me, and I showed it to her.
I'd have done the right thing by her if she hadn't behaved like an
hysterical idiot."
"The girl's death lies at your door, and you know it," Wingate replied.
"It has taken me a good many years to pay my debt to the dead. I did my
best to kill you, but without a weapon you were a hard man to shake the
last spark of life out of.--There, I am tired of this. I have let you
talk. I have answered your useless questions. Be so good as to leave me."
The shadow of impending disaster seemed to have found its way into
Phipps' bones.
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