"Well, you're a hell of a friend, Marsh.

You've been as thick as thieves, and now when he's up against it good and hard, you're the first man to turn your back on him!" Seating himself, Langham took up his pen and began to write.

Gilmore watched him in silence for a moment, a smile of lazy tolerance on his lips.
"Suppose North is acquitted, Marsh; suppose the grand jury doesn't hold him," he said at length; "will the search for the murderer go on ?" The pen slipped from Langham's fingers to the desk.
"Look here, I don't want to discuss North or his affairs with you.

It's nothing to me; can't you get that through your head ?" "As his friend--" began Gilmore.
"Get rid of that notion, too!" "That's what I wanted to hear you say, Marsh! So you're not his friend ?" "No!" exclaimed Langham briefly, and his shaking fingers searched among the papers on his desk for the pen he had just dropped.
"So you're not his friend any more ?" repeated Gilmore slowly.

"Well, I expect when a fellow gets hauled up for murder it's asking a good deal of his friends to stand by him! Do you know, Marsh, I'm getting an increased respect for the law; it puts the delinquents to such a hell of a lot of trouble.