the outer door open and shut. He sprang up with an
ejaculation of satisfaction.

"Dick, at last!" he muttered.

It was, in truth, the son. A moment later, he entered the room, and went
at once to his father, who was standing waiting, facing the door.

"I'm awfully sorry I'm so late, Dad," he said simply.

"Where have you been?" the father demanded gravely. But there was great
affection in the flash of his gray eyes as he scanned the young man's
face, and the touch of the hand that he put on Dick's shoulder was very
tender. "With that woman again?"

The boy's voice was disconsolate as he replied:

"No, father, not with her. She won't see me."

The older man snorted a wrathful appreciation.

"Naturally!" he exclaimed with exceeding bitterness in the heavy voice.
"She's got all she wanted from you--my name!" He repeated the words with
a grimace of exasperation: "My name!"

There was a novel dignity in the son's tone as he spoke.

"It's mine, too, you know, sir," he said quietly.

The father was impressed of a sudden with the fact that, while this
affair was of supreme import to himself, it was, after all, of still
greater significance to his son. To himself, the chief concerns were
of the worldly kind. To this boy, the vital thing was something deeper,
something of the heart: for, however absurd his feeling, the truth
remained that he loved the woman. Yes, it was the son's name that Mary
Turner had taken, as well as that of his father. In the case of the son,
she had taken not only his name, but his very life. Yes, it was, indeed,
Dick's tragedy. Whatever he, the father, might feel, the son was, after
all, more affected. He must suffer more, must lose more, must pay more
with happiness for his folly.

Gilder looked at his son with a strange, new respect, but he could not
let the situation go without protest, protest of the most vehement.

"Dick," he cried, and his big voice was shaken a little by the force
of his emotion; "boy, you are all I have in the world. You will have
to free yourself from this woman somehow." He stood very erect, staring
steadfastly out of his clear gray eyes into those of his son. His heavy
face was rigid with feeling; the coarse mouth bent slightly in a smile
of troubled fondness, as he added more softly: "You owe me that much."

The son's eyes met his father's freely. There was respect in them, and
affection, but there was something else, too, something the older man
recognized as