“You come back!” he ordered. “Come back! If you don't--Well, by the Lord, if you don't I'll get up and come after you!” I believe he would have tried to do it. I was frightened, on his account. I turned reluctantly. He sank back on the pillow, grinning triumphantly. “Sit down there,” he panted. “Sit down. Now I want you to tell me the real reason why you won't work for me. By gad! you're the first one in many a day I have had to ask twice. Why? Tell me the truth! Why?” I hesitated. “Well, for one reason,” I said, “I don't care for your business.” “Don't CARE for it! After what you just did!” “I did that because I was driven to it. But I don't care for the stock game. Once I used to think I liked that sort of thing; now I know I don't. If I am anything I am a bank man, a poor sort of one, perhaps, but--” “Bank man! Why, you idiot! I don't care what you are. I can use you in a dozen places. You don't have to buck the market. I'll do that myself. But there are plenty of places where your brains and that common-sense you talk about will be invaluable to me. I do a banking business, on the side, myself. I own a mining property, a good one, out West. It needs a financial manager, and needs one badly. You come with me, do you hear! I'll place you where you fit, before I get through with you, and I'll make you a rich man in ten years. There! now will you say yes?” I shook my head. “No,” I said. “NO! You are enough to drive a well man crazy, to say nothing of a half-sick relic like me. _I_ say yes--yes--YES! Sooner or later I'll MAKE you. You've lost your place here. You told me yourself that that old crank Dean is going to make this town too hot to hold you. You'll HAVE to go away. Now won't you?” I nodded. “I shall go away,” I answered. “I have made up my mind to go, now that Mother seems well enough for me to leave her.” “Where will you go?” “I don't know.” He stared at me in silence for what seemed a long time. I thought he must be exhausted, and once more I rose to go. “Stop! Stay where you are,” he ordered. “I haven't got the answer to you yet, and I know it. There's something back of all this, something I don't know about. I'm going to find out what it is, if it takes me a year. You can tell me now, if you want to. It will save time. What is the real reason why you won't take my offer?” I don't know why I did it. I had kept the secret all the years and certainly, when I entered that room, I had no intention of revealing it. Yet, now, when he asked this question I turned on him and blurted out what I had sworn no one--least of all he or his--should ever know. “I'll tell you why,” I cried, desperately. “I can't take the place you offer because you know nothing about me. You don't know who I am. If you did you . . . . Mr. Colton, you don't even know my name.” He looked at me and shook his head, impatiently. “Either you ARE crazy, or I am,” he muttered. “Don't know your name!”