"It would be silly to tell you that I ever can forget that
terrible affair," she said; "but somehow I feel that the man
who did that was an entirely different man from the man who
has been so brave and chivalrous in his treatment of me
during the past few weeks."
"It was me that did it, though," he said; "you can't get
away from that. It'll always stick in your memory, so that
you can never think of Mr. Mallory without thinking of the
damned beast that murdered him--God! and I thought it
smart!
"But you have no idea how I was raised, Miss Harding,"
he went on. "Not that that's any excuse for the thing I did;
but it does make it seem a wonder that I ever could
have made a start even at being decent. I never was well
acquainted with any human being that wasn't a thief, or a
pickpocket, or a murderer--and they were all beasts, each
in his own particular way, only they weren't as decent as
dumb beasts.
"I wasn't as crafty as most of them, so I had to hold
my own by brute force, and I did it; but, gad, how I accomplished
it. The idea of fighting fair," he laughed at the thought,
"was utterly unknown to me. If I'd ever have tried it I'd
have seen my finish in a hurry. No one fought fair in my
gang, or in any other gang that I ever ran up against.
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