yourself again soon," he said comfortingly, though without
faith in the assurance.

His father's lips moved in a whisper.

"No; my time is here at last," said he. "But don't go to San Mateo,
Steele,--don't go, don't go. Oh, my God, spare me that!"

"Would you have me break my word? I never have to any man, father. I
accepted this offer and signed a contract. I'm morally bound; these
men are depending on me. Were you ever at San Mateo? Was it something
that happened there that makes you fearful to have me go? San Mateo is
a thousand miles from here."

The face before him became like the face of a corpse. For an instant
Steele's heart went cold in the belief that his father had died under
the effect of his declaration. But at last the eyelids raised, the
eyes gazed at him. And all at once the features of the harsh visage
seemed softened, changed, lightened by a dim illumination.

"I see you now as you are, a man, stronger than I ever was," he
murmured. "I lived in fear, but my fear was not for myself. Had I been
alone, nothing would have mattered after your mother died. But my fear
was for you--and of you. I was afraid your life would be blasted; I
was in terror lest you should hate and despise me when you learned the
truth. So I sought to conceal it."

"You had no need to fear that."

"I see it now. Tell me everything or nothing as you wish about your
going to San Mateo to work; it will frighten me no longer."

Steele briefly spoke of his new work there, of the magnitude of the
project and the desire he had had that his father might be with him.

"I'm proud of you," his father said. "God knows I have not been the
parent I would or should have been."

"It's enough for me if your heart's easy now."

"I feel as if I were gaining peace at last and--and I must speak. In
San Mateo--ah, Steele, you will hear of me there,--you may have to
fight the damning influence of my name and past, but I know now you'll
come through it. And all I pray for is that you can retain a little
love for me despite everything."

"Whatever it is I shall hear of my father, I should rather hear it
from his lips than from strangers'."

The hand in his closed spasmodically. For a long time nothing was
said, and the only sound in the room was the ticking of the tin clock
on the shelf busily measuring off the seconds of the old man's failing
span. To Steele it was as if his father was slowly summoning the few
remaining shreds of his fortitu