You have the cards now: yet I warn you against playing them. For, as
sure as I sit here, I warn you that in the act of destroying him you
will destroy yourself. I look back on his miserable pursuit, and I
prophesy the end of yours."
"Well, it has taken me through fires of hell," said he; "but I
wouldn't have missed it. I'm the man now, and he's the coward."
"Quite so," said I. "Then be thankful and drop it. Do you want to
retrieve his soul as he has found yours?"
Farrell mused over this for a while. "I can't explain it to you," he
said. "I can't explain it to myself. But that man and I simply
can't give one another up. As I woke it in him, so he wakes in me
something that I can't be without, having once known it. It seems to
be a necessary part of myself."
"There are a great many 'Can'ts' in that confession--for a strong
man," was my comment; "and a trifle too much 'myself' for a man who
has found himself. But you remember that meeting at the Baths, when
you and Jack Foe first made acquaintance? Of course you do.
Well, there was a little man seated in the hall, fronting you, and he
read the explanation and gave it to me later, as he helped me on with
my coat.
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