So he thought of the last six months. He remembered how, after his father's confession, the secret had appeared before him, a flaming sword in its hand. It had driven him out of New York. He had sought respite in Dayton, and there he had become a man, in this new world that was all the world there could now be for him. The secret, therefore, had given to him not only the will, but the power to fight now. He had Thompson for an ally--Thompson, who had said, “Come back with or without an explanation”; Thompson, who would understand, as no other man could understand, how his father had been prompted to do this evil deed by nothing more evil than a great and unreasoning love. And the great and unreasoning love had changed the mind that could think of nothing but to fulfil at any cost his promises to a dead wife. Oh, Thompson would surely understand! Yet he could not say that his father was legally insane. He was, in fact, a keen and shrewd man, who had surprised Tommy with his advice as to what he should tell Willetts. But on one subject his father was as irresponsible as a child. That was it--a child. And Tommy found himself reversing their positions, until Mr. Leigh was the son and Tommy the father, whose duty it was to protect the poor boy. Well, Tommy would tell his father that the stock must be given up and the money refunded, and nobody would be blamed, at least not by Tommy. It was his duty to undo the mischief. Not knowing how it was done, he could not tell how it might be undone. Tommy wished he might ask Thompson for advice. He regretted not having taken Thompson into his confidence; and then ceased to regret it when he considered that he could have given no data of value to Thompson. He would learn the facts and then he could talk to Thompson intelligently. He must do it as quickly as possible, because he was no longer impelled by the fear of what the world might think, but by the conviction that he must do his duty at any cost, in undoing the wrong done to the bank. This new attitude of Tommy's toward the tragedy of his life robbed the secret of most of its terrors. His hands were now clean--and his father's were smeared with love! Motive was everything--Tommy's and Mr. Leigh's. And in excusing his father Tommy did not condone the offense, but did better--forgave it! And the difference between forgiveness this time and the forgiveness he had granted whenever he had thought of his father's love was that this time Tommy forgave after he had determined deliberately to do what might make the secret public property. He was no longer thinking of self. He arrived shortly after midday on Thursday. His father had not come from the bank. Tommy decided not to call on Colonel Willetts until after he had talked to his father. And he would not seek his father in the bank, although he was so impatient to settle the affair that he found waiting an appalling strain on his overwrought nerves.