“You have cost me, up to this day, a trifle over seventeen thousand dollars. At school you cost me a little less than my salary. At college you spent one thousand eight hundred and seventy-eight dollars for your Freshman, two thousand and twelve dollars for your Sophomore, two thousand one hundred and forty-six dollars for your Junior, and two thousand three hundred and ninety-one dollars for your Senior year. Your summer vacation expenses have added an average of four hundred dollars a year to what you cost me since you were sixteen. But I have kept my promise to her. I do not begrudge the cost!” There was a subtle defiance' in the old man's voice, and also a subtle accusation. To Tommy his father's arithmetic had in it something not only incomprehensible, but uncanny. The old man looked as if he expected speech from his son, so Tommy stammered uncomfortably: “I--I suppose--your s-savings--” The grim lines came back to the old man's mouth. “I had the house rent to pay, and my salary was what I have told you.” “I don't quite understand--” floundered Tommy. “You have had the college and the friends she wished you to have. When you asked for money I always sent it to you. I asked no questions and urged no economies.” “I had no idea--” began Tommy, and suddenly ceased to talk. There came a question into his eyes. The past was over and done with. There remained the future. What was expected of him? What was he to do? But the old man missed the question. All he saw was an interrogation, and he said, “You wish to know how I did it?” This was not at all what Tommy really wished to know, but he nodded, for, after all, his father's answer would be one of the many answers to one of the many questions he had to ask. “My son”--Mr. Leigh spoke in a low voice, but looked unflinchingly at his son--“I ask you, as a grown man, what does an old and trusted bank employee always do who spends much more than his salary?” Tommy's soul became a frozen mass, numb, immobile. Then a flame smote him full in the face, so intense that he put up his hands to protect it. He stared unseeingly at his father. There flashed before him ten thousand cinematograph nightmares that fleeted by before he could grasp the details. He felt a slight nausea. He feared to breathe, because he was afraid to find himself alive. “Father!” he gasped. Mr. Leigh's face was livid. He said, sternly, “I have kept my promise to her!” “But why did you--why did you--keep me at college? Why didn't you tell me you had no money?” “I did as she wished me to do. Believe me, my son, I am not sorry. But it need not go on.”