The door slammed upon Wayne as he returned for the last time to his own room, and began collecting the papers in his desk. He had burned his bridges and there was no retracing his steps. His heart was still hot; he experienced no contrition, though he regretted immediately his reference to Addie, which could only react upon her. But in the main he was satisfied that he had settled accounts with his father at last. The door was closed between Roger Craighill and his son, blown shut by the winds of wrath. Colonel Craighill sat staring at the wall that separated them. These last weeks had tried him sorely and his head sank upon his breast and he remained there late, pondering his affairs. The stringency of the fall and winter had pinched hard; his own buoyant optimism had been badly shattered by it. The control of the towering Craighill building had passed from the Colonel’s hands. When the banks demanded additional collateral on loans that had been carried easily for several years he found that the securities in a number of his enterprises were looked upon coldly by discount boards. Even the Hercules National, in which he had been a director since its organization and which had always readily accommodated him, called his loans on a hint, it was said, from the comptroller’s office. It was trying to Colonel Craighill’s pride to be summoned to the private rooms of banks to discuss his own affairs with men who had suddenly ceased to be admiring friends and were now gravely inquisitorial. They did their best for him, though; even his bonds and stock in the Craighill building corporation were “deposited”--that was the disingenuous term--with three trustees for the benefit of creditors and this was a salve to his wounded vanity. With a breathing time and the return of confidence Colonel Craighill declared he would reclaim them. His faith in the great Mexican plantation scheme was unshaken, and his colonial investments would yet prove his wisdom. He begged his inquisitors, in their austere mahogany cabinets, to have patience and all would be well; values were intact; credit only had been stampeded; and he cited world conditions with his accustomed familiarity, which, however, did not relieve the immediate pressing fact that he owed a large sum of money which he could not pay.