But his good qualities, if few,
were of the strongest fiber, rooted in the deeps of him. He
loathed treachery. His one guiltiness in this respect had been,
curiously enough, toward Mary herself, in the scheme of the
burglary, which she had forbidden. But, in the last analysis,
here his deceit had been designed to bring affluence to her. It
was his abhorrence of treachery among pals that had driven him to
the murder of the stool-pigeon in a fit of ungovernable passion.
He might have stayed his hand then, but for the gusty rage that
swept him on to the crime. None the less, had he spared the man,
his hatred of the betrayer would have been the same.... And the
other virtue of Joe Garson was the complement of this--his own
loyalty, a loyalty that made him forget self utterly where he
loved. The one woman who had ever filled his heart was Mary, and
for her his life were not too much to give.
The suddenness of it all held Mary voiceless for long seconds.
She was frozen with horror of the event.
When, at last, words came, they were a frantic prayer of protest.
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