Jeffard confessed judgment and paid the costs. "I don't know very much about the sample, Lansdale. One time--it was in the sophomore year, I believe--I thought I knew my own potentialities. But I didn't. If any one had prophesied then that I had it in me to do what I have done, I should have demanded a miracle to confirm it." "But you must justify yourself to yourself," Lansdale persisted. "Why must I? That is another of your cut-and-dried formulas. So far from recognizing any such obligation, I may say that I gave up trying to account for myself a long time ago. And if I have found it impossible, it isn't worth while for you to try." Lansdale was not the man to bruise his hands with much beating upon the barred doors of any one's confidence. So he said, "I'm done. It's between you and your conscience,--if you haven't eliminated that with the other things. But I had hoped you'd see fit to defend yourself. The eternal query is sharp enough without the pointing of particular instances." Jeffard squared himself, with his elbows on the table. "Do you want an hypothesis, too?--as another man did? Take this, and make the most of it. You knew me and my lacks and havings. You knew that I had reached a point at which I would have pawned my soul for the wherewithal to purchase a short hour or two of forgetfulness. Hold that picture in your mind, and conceive that a summer of unsuccessful prospecting had not changed me for better or worse. Is the point of view unobstructed?" "The point of view is your own, not mine," Lansdale objected. "And, moreover, the summer did change you, because advancement in some direction is an irrefrangible law. But go on." "I will. This man whom you have in mind was suddenly brought face to face with a great temptation,--great and subtle. Garvin drove the tunnel on the Midas three years ago and abandoned it as worthless. It was my curiosity which led to the discovery of the gold. It was I who took the sample to the assayer and carried the news of the bonanza to Garvin. I might have kept the knowledge to myself, but I didn't. Why? do you ask? I don't know--perhaps because it didn't occur to me. What followed Bartrow has told you, but not all. Let us assume that the race to Aspen was made in good faith; that this man who had put honor and good report behind him really meant to stand between a drunken fool and the fate he was rushing upon. Can you go so far with me?" Lansdale nodded. He was spellbound, but it was the artist in him and not the man who hung breathless upon the edge of expectancy.