five hundred dollars belonging to your child. There's twenty-five
hundred dollars more to be accounted for."

The other hesitated, then with an oath threw the letter on the table.
"I'll pay the rest as soon as I can, if you'll stop this damned
tomfoolery," he said sullenly, for he saw that he was in a hole.

"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."

"You want me to go to prison, then?"

"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?"

"What do you want with me, then?" The man sank slowly and heavily back
into the chair.

"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?"

Bewildered, the man looked around helplessly. In the silence which
followed Foyle's words his brain was struggling to see a way out.
Foyle's further words seemed to come from a great distance.