"Well, then—I’m going _to discover the secret of me life_. In other words, I’m going to see if I can get a line on my grandfather—the unfortunate gentleman—no, of course he couldn’t have been a _gentleman_, because he was a bailiff!—the unfortunate beggar who got himself disliked by his employer, and Madam Crewe. Personally, I’ve no social use for defunct forbears. It’s a bit curious, because I’m a Bostonian. But professionally I’m all right on them. They have their uses scientifically. If my grandfather had a bug—I mean _germ_ (disease or vice germ) I needn’t necessarily inherit that particular insect, but there’s no denying that if it happens along, I’m more open to infection, than a fellow whose grandad hadn’t specialized as an entomologist. I’ve a notion I’d like to read my title clear. So I’m going to Boston to dig up dead deeds—in both senses, and see what I have back of me." "I’d much rather see what I have ahead," Katherine laughed mirthlessly. Dr. Ballard’s chin went up with a jerk. "Oh, I’m not afraid of what’s before me. I’m willing to stand and face the future. If a fellow’s straight goods on his own account, he has nothing to fear. He’ll win out, somehow. But I wouldn’t care to look forward, if I’d lied, or was a coward, or taken what belonged to some other fellow, or had any other sort of dirty rag of memory trailing after me. You never can tell when such a thing will trip you up. I say, you’re not cold this broiling night, are you?" "No. Why?" "You shivered." "Did I? It makes me nervous to hear you talk about ’dirty rags of memory.’ I didn’t suppose any one lived who hadn’t regrets. I know _I_ have." "No doubt. I can imagine what for. _I’m_ talking of real offenses. The sort of thing Madam Crewe hints at in connection with my grandfather. By Jove, I wonder what the poor old duffer was guilty of. Perhaps, to put it euphemistically, he appropriated funds not his own—swiped from _your_ great-grandfather’s till. Seriously, that’s no joke! I can imagine that even if a chap didn’t care much about his family-tree, it might be a rather scorching reflection to know you’d descended—_fallen_—from a rotten apple of a thief, or something. You’d be forever looking for some taint of it to crop out in you. I confess, it wouldn’t rejoice even my democratic soul. But that’s what I’m going out for to discover. So, when next you see me, perhaps you won’t." Katherine’s hand went toward him in an impulse too strong to resist. "You know better than that," she said in a voice not wholly steady. Dr. Ballard’s large, firm grasp closed about her slender trembling fingers. "I know better than that," he repeated gravely. "But there’s something else, not your friendship, I can’t be so confident of. When I come back, if everything’s all right, as I believe it will be, I hope you’ll be kind to me, and set my heart at rest about that too."