"San Mateo--San Mateo!" he gasped. "Not there, not there, Steele! Keep away, keep away, keep away! My God, not San Mateo--you!" He swayed as if about to fall full length, gesturing blindly before his face as if to sweep away the thought, while his son ran towards him. "Father, you're sick," Steele exclaimed, putting an arm about the other. And, in truth, the elder man seemed fainting, ready to collapse. "Come, let me help you in so you can lie down. I must bring a doctor." Steele almost carried him to the bed. On it his father sank, remaining with closed eyes and scarcely breathing. "No doctor; bring no doctor," he said painfully, at last. "I feel--I feel as if dying." "I must bring a doctor. And I have a flask of whiskey; let me pour you a little to revive your heart." The change the words wrought from passivity to action was startling. The elder Weir arose suddenly on elbow, glaring fiercely. "Whiskey, never! It brought me to this, it damned my life. If it had not been for whiskey----" Without finishing the words he fell back on the bed. The loathing, the hatred, the utter horror of his exclamation, banished from his son's mind further thought of using this stimulant. "But the doctor?" he inquired, gently. "No use, Steele. I've been the same as a dead man for days. Just ashes. I want to die; I want to lie by your mother there under the big pine. And maybe I'll have peace--peace." Steele took in his own the wasted hand hanging from the bed. He held it tight, with a feeling of infinite tragedy. "You'll be 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."