She smiled apologetically. “Of course I know young people are different nowadays, and it isn’t a grandmother’s place to interfere; but I am afraid it was a mistake, your getting Henry that car.” “You don’t mean to tell me he’s not in the house?” “I’m afraid so. After the rest of you had gone he said he believed he’d go for a drive in his car. I said he mustn’t think of it on such a night, but he laughed, and I couldn’t get him to pay any attention. I was hoping to hear him come in before you did. Perhaps you’d better——” “Yes,” Dan said, as he strode into the hall. “I think I had.” CHAPTER XXVIII HE FOUND Henry, but the search took two hours, and his clothes were sodden with the rain that drenched them as he got in and out of his car to make inquiries, or to investigate restaurants of lively all-night reputations. The red “speedster” he had bought for his son stood hub-deep in the running gutter before the last of these to be reached; and when the father brought his boy out of the place, and helped him into the Morgan limousine, Henry protested in a whimper somewhat incoherent that he wanted to drive his own car home;—he didn’t like to leave it out all night in the rain he said. “I guess it _has_ stood where it is about long enough!” Dan told him grimly. “But we’ll leave it there till I send a man for it in the morning—to sell it, Henry.” Henry whimpered again; then recovered enough presence of mind to say no more. When they reached home, he went upstairs as quickly as he could, although once he had to employ the assistance of the banister railing; and his father followed him. A light still shone into the hall from the library door, and Dan, whose face was pallid and startled, made his voice cheerful as he called from the stairway: “It’s all right, mother. The boy’s home and everything’s all right. Just a little foolishness with his car; and I’ve decided it’ll be offered for sale to-morrow. You go to bed now.” Henry went to his room and Dan was following him, when Lena, wearing a bright kimono over her nightdress, made her appearance in the open doorway of her bedroom. “What _is_ all this?” she asked petulantly. “Never mind!” “But I do mind! What are you saying about selling Henry’s car? Didn’t I hear you say——” “Yes, you did.” Dan closed the door of Henry’s room and came to her. “I made a terrible mistake to give it to him. We’ve both made a mistake the way we’ve raised him. He’s a good boy; he’s got a fine nature and a noble soul. But he’s got with bad companions. He’s been——” He paused, and went on slowly, with difficulty: “He’s been—he’s been drinkin’, Lena.” She said nothing, but stared at him blankly for a moment—then the stare became an angry one. “We’ve got to change our whole way of treatin’ Henry,” her unhappy husband told her. “We’ve been all wrong. He—he got with bad companions——” “Yes,” she interrupted angrily. “I should think he might, in a town like this!”