“My dear fellow,” he said, “you
are right. Try to understand what I am saying,
and take it easy. You rode into a blizzard, right
enough. But that was not last night. It
was ten years ago.”
Had Bassett had some wider knowledge of Dick’s
condition he might have succeeded better during that
bad hour that followed. Certainly, if he had
hoped that the mere statement of fact and its proof
would bring results, he failed. And the need
for haste, the fear of the pursuit behind them, made
him nervous and incoherent.
He had first to accept the incredible, himself—that
Dick Livingstone no longer existed, that he had died
and was buried deep in some chamber of an unconscious
mind. He made every effort to revive him, to
restore him into the field of consciousness, but without
result. And his struggle was increased in difficulty
by the fact that he knew so little of Dick’s
life. David’s name meant nothing, apparently,
and it was the only name he knew. He described
the Livingstone house; he described Elizabeth as he
had seen her that night at the theater. Even
Minnie. But Dick only shook his head.
And until he had aroused some instinct, some desire
to live, he could not combat Dick’s intention
to return and surrender.
“I understand what you are saying,” Dick
would say. “I’m trying to get it.
But it doesn’t mean anything to me.”
He even tried the war.
“War? What war?” Dick asked.
And when he heard about it he groaned.
“A war!” he said. “And I’ve
missed it!”
But soon after that he got up, and moved to the door.
“I’m going back,” he said.
“Why?”
“They’re after me, aren’t they?”
“You’re forgetting again. Why should
they be after you now, after ten years?”
“I see. I can’t get it, you know.
I keep listening for them.”
Bassett too was listening, but he kept his fears to
himself.
“Why did you do it?” he asked finally.
“I was drunk, and I hated him. He married
a girl I was crazy about.”
Bassett tried new tactics. He stressed the absurdity
of surrendering for a crime committed ten years before
and forgotten.
“They won’t convict you anyhow,”
he urged. “It was a quarrel, wasn’t
it? I mean, you didn’t deliberately shoot
him?”
“I don’t remember. We quarreled.
Yes. I don’t remember shooting him.”
“What do you remember?”
Dick made an effort, although he was white to the
lips.
“I saw him on the floor,” he said slowly,
and staggered a little.
“Then you don’t even know you did it.”
“I hated him.”
But Bassett saw that his determination to surrender
himself was weakening. Bassett fought it with
every argument he could summon, and at last he brought
forward the one he felt might be conclusive.
