Page:The Mystery of Central Park.djvu/194

188 had no friends to make any trouble about it, and I lost my head. I have suffered for it. I have regretted it." And Tolman Bike put his hands over his face, and Richard heard a broken, husky sob.

This was more than he could endure. His sternness fled at that sound, and he could hardly refrain from attempting to console the wretched man. Only thoughts of the poverty-stricken little sister helped him maintain an air of unrelenting sternness.

"Well, what do you ask of me?" Richard asked with a roughness that covered his real feeling. Now that he had conquered the man his suspicions fled. He felt sorry for Bike's suffering and had a guilty feeling that he was the cause of it.

"Only give me until to-morrow and I'll swear to you that you shall know what you want to before ten o'clock. Give me until then. If I fail, you have yet time to stop my