"It came mighty near smashing me when I found it out, dad. It wasn't so much the thing itself as it was the thought that you'd do it--the thought that you had forgotten that I was a Blount, and your son." Again the older man nodded gravely. "How come you to find out, Evan, boy?" he asked. "It was when Hathaway had been given his chance at me. He opened the cesspool for me, as you meant he should when you sent him to me. From your point of view, I suppose it was necessary that I should be shown. You knew what I was saying and doing; how I was taking it for granted that the railroad was going in clean-handed, and the one ray of comfort in the whole miserable business is the fact that you cared enough to want to give me a glimpse of the real thing that was hiding behind all my brave talk. But I don't think you counted fully upon the effect it would have upon me." "What was the effect, son?" "At first, it made me want to throw up the fight and run away to the ends of the earth. It seemed as if I didn't have anybody to turn to. You were in it, and Gantry was in it--and Gantry's superiors and mine. That evening I borrowed one of your cars and drove out to Wartrace. I meant to have it out with you, and then to throw up my hands and quit." "But you didn't do either one," said the father tentatively. "No. Nothing went right that day, until just at the last. When I was about to give up and go to bed, Patricia came into the smoking-room. I had to talk to somebody, so I talked to her; told her where I had landed." "And she advised you to throw up your hands?" "You don't know Patricia. She put a heart into my body and blood into my veins. What she said to me that night is what has kept me going, dad--what has made me drive this fight for a clean election on the part of the railroad company home to the hilt. I have driven it home. There will be no crooked deals on the part of the railroad company this time." The senator looked up quickly. "That's a mighty good stout thing to say," he remarked, adding: "I reckon you're not saying it without having the right and proper club hid out somewhere where you can lay hands on it?" Blount tapped his coat-pocket. "I have the club right here--documentary evidence that will rip this State wide open and send a lot of people to the penitentiary. I've told Gantry to pass the word: a clean sheet, or I go over to the other side and tell what I know. And that brings me to the thing that I've got to say to you, dad--the thing that made me hope I'd find you here to-night. After I'd got my battle-word from Patricia, I had a jolt that was worse than the other. When I pulled the gun on Gantry, he told me that I couldn't shoot without killing you; that you were just as deeply involved as any one of the railroad officials. Is that the truth?" The senator had pushed his chair back and was burying his hands in his pockets. "You've come to try to haul me out of the fire?" he inquired, ignoring the direct question.