If he had been ten times a liar, ten times a slanderer and assassin of character, a man would have known that the young editor spoke the truth then. That knowledge disarmed Varney. To have sold the _Gazette_ to one who would prostitute it still further was hardly a noble act; but for Smith it meant unmistakably that he wanted to cut loose from the old evil walks where he had done ill by his honor and battened exceedingly. "All along," said Varney slowly, "I have had a kind of sneaking feeling that there was a spark left in you yet." He picked up his hat and stick again, and faced the pale young editor. "Smith, you have done me a devilish wrong. You have knowingly printed a vile slander about me, aware that the natural result of your falsehood was that some poor drunken fool would shoot me down from behind. When I walked in here five minutes ago, I had two purposes in mind. One was to buy your paper. The other was to throw you down the front stairs. I am leaving now without doing either. I abandoned the first because I had to; I abandon the second, voluntarily, because--I don't quite know why--but I think it is because it seems inappropriate to hit a man when he is down and something is just driving him to try to scramble up." He put on his hat and started to go; but Smith stopped him with a gesture. He let his eye, from which all sign of emotion had faded, run slowly over Varney's slender figure. "I wasn't such a slouch in my younger days," he said. "Football at my prep school, football and crew at my college. Boxed some at odd moments; was counted fair to middling. Some offhand practice since with people I've roasted--agents, actors, and the like. As to that throwing downstairs proposition now, if you'd care to try it on--" Varney shook his head. "I don't know that I can explain it--and no one regrets it more than I--but all the wish to _smash_ you, Smith, has gone away somewhere. The bottom has dropped out of it. Good-bye." "You are going? So am I," said Smith, with a fair imitation of his usual lightness. "Going away for good. I hope you will come through this all right. I'll never see you again. Shake hands, will you? You couldn't know it, of course, but--it--is possible that I owe something to--you two fellows." He stood motionless, half turned away, thin hands hanging loosely at his sides. Varney, who had colored slightly, took a last look at him. "No," he said, suddenly much embarrassed, "I--I'm afraid I couldn't do it in the way you mean, and so there wouldn't be any point in it. But I--I do wish you luck with all my heart."