“Come in here, Wendell,” directed the Railroader, shaking hands with his new guest, and leading the way to the library. “What’re you doing in this part of the country? Glad to see you.” “I bring you bad news—very bad news, I am afraid,” began the lawyer as Conover closed the library door behind them. “I know that,” snapped Caleb. “I knew it as soon as I saw your face, but I didn’t want you shouting it out in the hall where my butler could hear you. That’s why I—well, what is it? Tell me, can’t you?” “Your son——” “Yes, Jerry, of course. I knew that, too. But what’s he done this time?” “This is, as I said, a very serious——” “Good Lord, man! I didn’t s’pose you’d took a four-hour train ride from New York a night like this to tell me he’d won a ping pong prize or joined the Y. M. C. A. The chap that’s got to have news broke to him has a head too thick for truth to be let into it any other way. Don’t stand there like a lump of putty. What’s up?” The lawyer, flushing at the coarse invective, spared the father no longer. He spoke, and to the point. “Your son,” he said, “is in the West Thirtieth Street police station on a charge of murder.” Conover looked at him without a start, without visible emotion. For a full half minute he made no reply, no comment. Nor did his light, keen eyes flicker or turn aside. Then—and Wendell feared from his words that the tidings had turned Caleb’s brain—the Railroader muttered, half to himself: “‘And I only am escaped alone to tell thee.’” CHAPTER XIV CALEB CONOVER LOSES AND WINS “I don’t quite understand,” ventured the puzzled lawyer. “Neither do I,” said Caleb. “Tell me your story as brief as you can.”