and ceasing automatically, like the whispered
consultation that went on behind him on the stage.

But the boy did not wait for support or regard interruptions. He did not
need to. The audience was his in spite of them, and he knew it and they
knew it. Whatever he had to say, important or not, it was what they had
been waiting for; that was what the evening had been leading to, and it
was here at last. Pale and intent, the boy looked across the footlights
at Green River. The audience was his, but he had no pride in the
triumph. He began haltingly to speak.

"It will do no good to you or me, but you're going to listen. I've got a
word to say about Everard.

"He's sucked your town dry for years and you know it. He's had the pick
of your men and used their brains and their youth, and he's had the pick
of your women. If there are any of you here that he's got no hold on,
it's because you're worth nothing to him. He's got the town. Now he's
driven one of your boys to his death.

"'I can't beat him.' That's what Theodore Burr said to me the night he
died. 'They won't blame him for this. I want to die because I don't want
to live in the world with him, but I'll do no harm to him by dying, only
to Lily and me. They won't blame him. You can't beat Everard.'

"Well, you don't blame Everard. He's got you where you don't blame him,
whatever he does. You shut your eyes to it. He's got you. You know all
this and you shut your eyes. Now I'll tell you some things you don't
know. Everard's been trying for weeks to bribe me to keep my mouth shut,
like he bribed Charlie for years. He might have saved his breath and his
money. I can't hurt him, whether I keep my mouth shut or not. You won't
blame him. You'll let him get away with this, too. But you're going to
know."

The boy came closer still to the footlights and leaned across them,
pausing and deliberately choosing his words. The pause, and the look in
his dark, intent eyes as he stood there challenged Green River and dared
it to interrupt him. But it was too late to interrupt, too late to stop
him now. And behind him in the place of honour in the centre of the row
of chairs on the stage, one man at least was powerless to stop him:
Colonel Everard, who listened with a set smile on his lips, and a set
stare in his eyes.

"He's the man that broke Maggie Brady's life to pieces," Neil's low
voice went on. "Everard's the man. He got her away from town. He filled
her head with him and