"
I could not stand it. If I stayed, I, too, should become mad. I reached
for the doorknob, but before I could swing the door open Bob was upon me
like a wolf. He grasped me by the shoulders and with the strength of a
madman hurled me half across the room. I sank into a chair.
"No, you don't, Jim Randolph, no, you don't. You came here for something
and, by heaven, you will tell me what it is! You know me; you are the only
human being who does. You know what I was, you see what I am. You know
what they did to me to make me what I am. You know, Jim Randolph, you know
whether I deserved it. You know whether in all my life up to the day those
dollar-frenzied hounds tore my soul, I had done any man, woman, or child a
wrong. You know whether I had, and now you are going to sneak off and
leave me as though I were a cur dog of the Reinhart-'Standard Oil' breed
gone mad!"
He was standing over me, a terrible yet a magnificent figure. As he hurled
these words at me, I was sure he had really lost his mind; that I was in
the presence of a man truly mad. But only for an instant; then my horror,
my anger turned to a great, crushing, all-consuming agony of pity for
Bob, and I dropped my head on my hands and wept.
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