"Such conditions obtain in certain circles in this country, too. They are a menace to the American home," she said gravely. "I was sent to Cambridge," he continued, "as my father and his father, and father's father before him, had been sent. I was a natural student and always did well in my work. But my drinking and gambling finally got me into trouble. I was fired. My father was so incensed at my dismissal he told me never to darken his doors again. He gave me money, and told me to leave at once for America. "I went to my mother's room to bid her good-by. She stood before a mirror while her maid was giving the final touches to her toilet. She looked regal and beautiful as she stood there, and I felt proud of her. I told her what had happened, and that I had come to bid her good-by. She turned upon me pettishly, and asked me how I could mar her pleasure just as she was going to a ball. Her last words to me were, 'I hate to be disturbed with family matters!'" "Did she bid you good-by?" "No." "Forget it," she urged. "All women are not like that. I hope you will find some rare woman who will be as a mother to you." "Forget it!" he repeated bitterly. "I can't." "But you will sometime. You came to America. What next?" "Then I entered the School of Mines at Columbia, and took my degree the following year, after which I joined Mr. Clayton here. That was seven years ago." "Did you know him in England?" "Yes. During these intervening years I have frequented the saloons. I have drank some, gambled some, as I did at home. And I have mingled with disreputable men here, but not to lift them up. I have not cared, chiefly because I knew no one else cared." His companion was silent. "You despise me, Miss Bright," he continued. "I deserve your contempt, I know. But I would do anything in the power of man to do now, if I could undo the past, and have a life as blameless as your own." He glanced at his companion. "What a brute I have been," he exclaimed, "to pour my ugly story into your ears!" "I am glad you told me," she assured him. She looked up with new sympathy and understanding. "You are going to live down your past now, Mr. Hastings. We'll begin here and now. You will not speak of this again unless it may be a relief to you. The matter will not cross my lips." She flashed upon him a radiant smile. She believed in him. He could hardly comprehend it. "You do not despise me? You forgive my past?" He looked into her face. "It is God who forgives. Why should I despise whom God forgives?" "If ever I find my way to God," he said in a low voice, "it will be through you." She quoted softly: "'Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red as crimson, they shall be as wool.'" Then she added, "I must go home now." They walked on to Clayton Ranch. After a few commonplaces, Kenneth lifted his hat, and turning, walked swiftly toward the company's headquarters.