human
Yes, I suppose you'd have potted me, Dorl, said the ex-sergeant.
gpt
You'd have thought no more of doing that than you did of killing Linley, the ranchman; than you did of trying to ruin Jo Byndon, your wife's sister, when she was sixteen years old, when she was caring for your child--giving her life for the child you brought into the world.
human
What in the name of hell--it's a lie!
gpt
Don't bluster. I know the truth.
human
Who told you--the truth?
gpt
She did--to-day--an hour ago.
human
She here--out here?
gpt
She is in the next room.
human
What did she come here for?
gpt
To make you do right by your own child. I wonder what a jury of decent men would think about a man who robbed his child for five years, and let that child be fed and clothed and cared for by the girl he tried to destroy, the girl he taught what sin there was in the world.
human
She put you up to this. She was always in love with you, and you know it.
gpt
There would be no shame in a decent woman caring for me, even if it was true. I haven't put myself outside the boundary as you have. You're my brother, but you're the worst scoundrel in the country--the worst unhanged. Put on the table there the letter in your pocket. It holds five hundred dollars belonging to your child. There's twenty-five hundred dollars more to be accounted for.
human
I'll pay the rest as soon as I can, if you'll stop this damned tomfoolery,
gpt
You'll pay it, I suppose, out of what you stole from the C. P. R. contractor's chest. No, I don't think that will do.
human
You want me to go to prison, then?
gpt
I think not. The truth would come out at the trial--the whole truth--the murder and all. There's your child, Bobby. You've done him enough wrong already. Do you want him--but it doesn't matter whether you do or not--do you want him to carry through life the fact that his father was a jail-bird and a murderer, just as Jo Byndon carries the scar you made when you threw her against the door?
human
What do you want with me, then?
gpt
There is a way--have you never thought of it? When you threatened others as you did me, and life seemed such a little thing in others--can't you think?