“Yes, I'm sure that's what turned her against him,” Dwight continued, “and that is where, between you and Helen, I get mixed up. Why do you always take up for the scamp? It looks to me like you'd resent the way he acted with your son after the boy's terrible end.” “There is a good deal more in the matter, Henry, than I ever told you about.” Major Warren's voice faltered. “To be plain, that is my secret trouble. I reckon if Helen was to discover the actual truth--_all of it_--she would never feel the same towards me. I think maybe I ought to tell you. It certainly will explain why I am so much interested in your boy.” They sat down, the owner of the house in a reclining-chair at an oblong, carved mahogany table covered with books and papers, the visitor on a lounge near by. “Well, it always has seemed odd to me,” old Dwight said. “I couldn't exactly believe you wanted to bring him and Helen together, after your experience with that sort of man under your own roof.” “It is this way,” said the Major, awkwardly. “To begin with, I am sure, from all I've picked up, that it was not your son that was leading mine on to dissipation, but just the other way. He's dead and gone, but Albert was always ready for a prank of any sort. Henry, I want to talk to you about it because it seems to me you are in the same position in regard to Carson that I was in regard to my poor boy, and I've prayed a thousand times for pardon for what I did in anger and haste. Henry, listen to me. If ever a man made a vital mistake I did, and I'll bear the weight of it to my grave. You know how I worried over. Albert's drinking and his general conduct. Time after time he made promises that he would turn over a new leaf only to break them. Well, it was on the last trip--the fatal one to New York, where he had gone and thrown away so much money. I wrote him a severe letter, and in answer to it I got a pathetic one, saying he was sick and tired of the way he was doing and begging me to try him once more and send him money to pay his way home. It was the same old sort of promise and I didn't have faith in him. I was unfair, unjust to my only son. I wrote and refused, telling him that I could not trust him any more. Hell inspired that letter, Henry--the devil whispered to me that I'd been indulgent to the poor boy's injury. Then came the news. When he was found dead in a small room on the top floor of that squalid hotel--dead by his own hand--my letter lay open beside him.” “Well, well, you couldn't help it!” Dwight said, most awkwardly, and he crossed his short, fat legs anew and reached for an open box of cigars. “You were trying to do your duty as you saw it, and to the best of your ability.”