For a few seconds Guion sat rigidly still, looking at this man.  The import and bearing of the words were too much for him to grasp at once.  All his mind was prepared to deal with on the spur of the moment was the fact of this offer, ignoring its application and its consequences as things which for the moment lay outside his range of thought.

As far as he was able to reflect, it was to assume that there was more here than met the eye.  Davenant was too practised as a player of “the game” to pay a big price for a broken potsherd, unless he was tolerably sure in advance that within the potsherd or under it there lay more than its value.  It was not easy to surmise the form of the treasure nor the spot where it was hidden, but that it was there—­in kind satisfactory to Davenant himself—­Guion had no doubt.  It was his part, therefore, to be astute and wary, not to lose the chance of selling, and yet not to allow himself to be overreached.  If Davenant was playing a deep game, he must play a deeper.  He was sorry his head ached and that he felt in such poor trim for making the effort.  “I must look sharp,” he said to himself; “and yet I must be square and courteous.  That’s the line for me to take.”  He tried to get some inspiration for the spurt in telling himself that in spite of everything he was still a man of business.  When at last he began to speak, it was with something of the feeling of the broken-down prize-fighter dragging himself bleeding and breathless into the ring for the last round with a young and still unspent opponent.

“I didn’t suppose you were in—­in a position—­to do that.”

“I am.”  Davenant nodded with some emphasis.

“Did you think that that was what I meant when I—­I opened my heart to you last night?”

“No.  I know it wasn’t.  My offer is inspired by nothing but what I feel.”

“Good!” It was some minutes before Guion spoke again.  “If I remember rightly,” he observed then, “I said I would sell my soul for half a million dollars.  I didn’t say I wanted to borrow that amount.”

“You may put it in any way you like,” Davenant smiled.  “I’ve come with the offer of the money.  I want you to have it.  The terms on which you’d take it don’t matter to me.”

“But they do to me.  Don’t you see?  I’d borrow the money if I could.  I couldn’t accept it in any other way.  And I can’t borrow it.  I couldn’t pay the interest on it if I did.  But I’ve exhausted my credit.  I can’t borrow any more.”

“You can borrow what I’m willing to lend, can’t you?”

“No; because Tory Hill is mortgaged for all it will stand.  I’ve nothing else to offer as collateral—­”

“I’m not asking for collateral.  I’m ready to hand you over the money on any terms you like or on no terms at all.”

“Do you mean that you’d be willing to—­to—­to give it to me?”

“I mean, sir,” he explained, reddening a little, “that I want you to have the money to use—­now.  We could talk about the conditions afterward and call them what you please.  If I understood you correctly last night, you’re in a tight place—­a confoundedly tight place—­”