endous
faith in his son; but he could not help seeing that an error had been
committed, as he thought, and that Frank was suffering greatly for it
now. He considered, of course, that Frank had been entitled to try to
save himself as he had; but he so regretted that his son should have put
his foot into the trap of any situation which could stir up discussion
of the sort that was now being aroused. Frank was wonderfully brilliant.
He need never have taken up with the city treasurer or the politicians
to have succeeded marvelously. Local street-railways and speculative
politicians were his undoing. The old man walked the floor all of the
days, realizing that his sun was setting, that with Frank's failure
he failed, and that this disgrace--these public charges--meant his own
undoing. His hair had grown very gray in but a few weeks, his step slow,
his face pallid, his eyes sunken. His rather showy side-whiskers seemed
now like flags or ornaments of a better day that was gone. His only
consolation through it all was that Frank had actually got out of his
relationship with the Third National Bank without owing it a single
dollar. Still as he knew the directors of that institution could not
possibly tolerate the presence of a man whose son had helped loot the
city treasury, and whose name was now in the public prints in this
connection. Besides, Cowperwood, Sr., was too old. He ought to retire.

The crisis for him therefore came on the day when Frank was arrested
on the embezzlement charge. The old man, through Frank, who had it from
Steger, knew it was coming, still had the courage to go to the bank but
it was like struggling under the weight of a heavy stone to do it. But
before going, and after a sleepless night, he wrote his resignation to
Frewen Kasson, the chairman of the board of directors, in order that
he should be prepared to hand it to him, at once. Kasson, a stocky,
well-built, magnetic man of fifty, breathed an inward sigh of relief at
the sight of it.

"I know it's hard, Mr. Cowperwood," he said, sympathetically. "We--and
I can speak for the other members of the board--we feel keenly the
unfortunate nature of your position. We know exactly how it is that your
son has become involved in this matter. He is not the only banker who
has been involved in the city's affairs. By no means. It is an old
system. We appreciate, all of us, keenly, the services you have rendered
this institution during the past thirty-five ye