It was, unquestionably, a tempting1 of Providence2, but Connor was almost past caring. Far off he heard the neighing of an Eden Gray; Ruth, with her bowed head and face covered in her hands, was before him, sobbing3; and all that he had come so near to winning and yet had lost rushed upon the mind of the gambler. He hardly cared now whether he lived or died. He called to the master of the Garden, and David whirled on him with a livid face. Connor walked into the reach of the lion.
"I've made my play," he said through his teeth, "and I don't holler because I've lost the big stakes. Now I'm going to give you something to show that I'm not a piker—some free advice, Dave!"
"O man of many lies," said David. "Peace! For when I hear you there is a great will come on me to take you by the throat and hear your life go out with a rattle4."
"A minute ago," said Connor coolly enough, "I was scared, and I admit it, but I'm past that stage. I've lost too much to care, and now you're going to hear me out to the last damned word!"
"God of Paul and Matthew," said David, his voice broken with rage, "let temptation be far from me!"
"You can take it standing5 or sitting," said Connor, "and be damned to you!"
The blind fury sent David a long step nearer, but he checked himself even as one hand rose toward Connor.
"It is the will of God that you live to be punished hereafter."
"No matter about the future. I'm chattering6 in the present. I'm going to come clean, not because I'm afraid of you, but because I'm going to clear up the girl. Abraham had the cold dope, well enough. I came to crook8 you out of a horse, Dave, my boy, and I did it. But after I'd got away with the goods I tried to play hog9, and I came back for the rest of the horses."
He paused; but David showed no emotion.
"You take the punishment very well," admitted Connor. "There's a touch of sporting blood in you, but the trouble is that the good in you has never had a fair chance to come to the top. I came back, and I brought Ruth with me.
"I'll tell you about her. She's meant to be an honest-to-God woman—the kind that keeps men clean—she's meant for the big-time stuff. And where did I find her? In a jay town punching a telegraph key. It was all wrong.
"She was made to spend a hundred thousand a year. Everything that money buys means a lot to her. I saw that right away. I like her. I did more than like her. I loved her. That makes you flinch10 under the whip, does it? I don't say I'm worthy11 of her, but I'm as near to her as you are.
"I admit I played a rotten part. I went to this girl, all starved the way she was for the velvet12 touch. I laid my proposition before her. She was to come up here and bamboozle13 you. She was to knock your eye out and get you clear of the valley with the horses. Then I was going to run those horses on the tracks and make a barrel of coin for all of us.
"You'd think she'd take on a scheme like that right away; but she didn't. She fought to keep from going crooked14 until I showed her it was as much to your advantage as it was to ours. Then she decided15 to come, and she came. I worked my stall and she worked hers, and she got into the valley.
"But this voice of yours in the Room of Silence—why didn't it put you wise to my game? Well, David, I'll tell you why. The voice is the bunk16. It's your own thoughts. It's your own hunches17. The god you've been worshiping up here is yourself, and in the end you're going to pay hell for doing it.
"Well, here's the girl in the Garden, and everything going smooth. We have you, and she's about to take you out and show you how to be happy in the world. But then she has to go into your secret room. That's the woman of it. You blame her? Why, you infernal blockhead, you've been making love to her like God Almighty18 speaking out of a cloud of fire! How could she hear your line of chatter7 without wanting to find out the secrets that made you the nut you are?
"Well, we went in, and we found out. We found out what? Enough to make the girl see that you're 'noble,' as she calls it. Enough to make me see that you're a simp. You've been chasing bubbles all your life. You're all wrong from the first.
"Those first four birds who started the Garden, who were they? There was John, a rich fellow who'd hit the high spots, had his life messed up, and was ready to quit. He'd lived enough. Then there was Luke, a gent who'd been double-crossed and was sore at the world on general principles.
"Paul would have been a full-sized saint in the old days. He was never meant to live the way other men have to live. And finally there's a guy who lies in the grass and whistles to a bird—Matthew. A poet—and all poets are nuts.
"Well, all those fellows were tired of the world—fed up with it. Boil them down, and they come to this: they thought more about the welfare of their souls than they did about the world. Was that square? It wasn't! They left the mothers and fathers, the brothers and sisters, the friends, everything that had brought them into the world and raised 'em. They go off to take care of t............