“Dad,” said Tommy, huskily, “I am not blaming you. Nothing that you have done and nothing that you can do can make me forget that I am your son and that you have done it for me--and for my mother.” “What do you mean?” asked Mr. Leigh, and did not look at his son. “It's this. Yesterday Mr. Thompson called me in and told me that eighteen hundred shares of Tecumseh stock had been transferred from Kendrick's, Colonel Willetts's confidential clerk, to my name.” Tommy looked at his father to see what effect his words might have. Even at the last moment he hoped to see astonishment. But Mr. Leigh nodded feverishly and said: “Yes, yes! And then what?” “Mr. Thompson asked me what it meant, so I said I didn't know. I couldn't explain.” “So you couldn't! So you couldn't!” as though he blamed the others for expecting it. “I was afraid to explain,” said Tommy, slowly, “because I assumed it--it was you who did it. Was it, father?” Tommy tried to speak calmly, in the vain hope that by so doing he would think calmly. But his heart was beating furiously and his very soul within him was in a quiver. And still so strong was hope that Tommy, who had lost hope, hoped his father would deny. Mr. Leigh said nothing, but stared at Tommy almost blankly. “Was it, father?” The old man nodded slowly. “Why did you do it, dad? Why did you?” asked Tommy, bitterly. Then he remembered what he had decided to do, and his bitterness turned into grief. He approached his father and put an arm about him and repeated, brokenly: “Oh, dad, why did you do it? Why did you?” He felt a great shudder run through the old shoulders, and that made him clasp them the tighter. “I--I felt you deserved it, Thomas. And I thought you--you would like it.” “How could you think such a thing when you knew how I felt about the money you had--you had spent for me, that I was trying to pay back?” “I thought only,” said the old man, in the dispirited monotone that Tommy now associated with a confession of guilt and an attempt to excuse the inexcusable, “that your mother would have been so proud of you, a stockholder in the company, an owner as well as an employee, earning your wages like an honest man.” Mr. Leigh nodded to himself again and again. “But, father, how could I allow it? How could you think--”