"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.

"You see, you've not only made a man's place in the world, Clark, as
I've told you. You've formed associations you can't get away from.
You've got to think of the Livingstones, and you told me yesterday a
shock would kill the old man. But it's more than that. There's a girl
back in your town. I think you were engaged to her."