. . while nominally first vice-president was
in actuality the manager of Eastern Mines. He had always been a man
without principle but John Harper Drennen had believed in him. There
came a time when the Eastern Mines threw a new scheme upon the market.
Frayne had engineered the plan and had made John Harper Drennen believe
in it. John Harper Drennen, using his influence, had caused his
friends to buy a total of one hundred thousand dollars of worthless
stock.

Before the exposure came John Harper Drennen had had his eyes opened.
He went to Frayne and Frayne laughed at him. He went higher up and
found that the nominal president was under Frayne's thumb.

Drennen sought the way to make restitution to the friends who had been
fleeced through his advice. He, himself, had not more than twenty-five
thousand dollars available. Being in a position of trust in the
company, he took from their vaults the remaining seventy-five thousand
dollars. He gave the money, the whole hundred thousand, to a broker,
instructing him to buy the worthless shares. He went to his friends,
instructing them to unload. He saw that he had made restitution.
Then, knowing that Frayne had cloaked his whole crooked deal in
protective technicalities of the law, knowing that his act could be
punished, he left New York.

He had sought to see his son, but David Drennen was out of town and
there was no time. He went to Paris. At last, a body in the Seine
gave him the opportunity to play at being dead. He wrote the note
which later came to David. Then he came to New York to find his son.
But David had left.

Through the after years the old man had sought always to do two things:
to return to the Eastern Mines the money which he had taken from the
company; to find his son.

That was his story.

He lifted his eyes when it was done, studying anxiously his son's face.

"I have sinned against the laws of man," he said simply. "I have
tried, Davie, not to sin against the laws of God."

Therein lay his only defence.

"Dad," whispered the son, his voice breaking now, the tears standing at
last in his eyes as they had stood in Max's; "it is I who have sinned,
being a man of little faith! Do you know how I worshipped you when I
was a boy? Do you know how I love you now?"

He bent forward swiftly and . . . he was the impulsive, warm-hearted
boy again . . . kissed his father. And a tear, falling, ran in the
same course with a tear from the old