“No, you don't! You think I am Roscoe Paine. I am not. I am Roscoe Bennett, and my father was Carleton Bennett, the embezzler.” I had said it. And the moment afterward I was sorry. I would have given anything to take back the words, but repentance came too late. I had said it. I heard him draw a deep breath. I did not look at him. I did not care to see his face and read on it the disgust and contempt I was sure it expressed. “Humph!” he exclaimed. “Humph! Do you mean to tell me that your father was Carleton Bennett--Bennett of Bennett and Company?” “Yes.” “Well! well! well! Carleton Bennett! No wonder there was something familiar about your mother, something that I seemed to remember. I met her years ago. Well! well! So you're Carleton Bennett's son?” “Yes, I am his son.” “Well, what of it?” I looked at him now. He was smiling, actually smiling. His illness had affected his mind. “What OF it!” I gasped. “Ye-es, what of it? What has that got to do with your working for me?” I could have struck him. If he had not been weak and ill and irresponsible for what he was saying I think I should. “Mr. Colton,” I said, striving to speak calmly, “you don't understand. My father was Carleton Bennett, the embezzler, the thief, the man whose name was and is a disgrace all over the country. Mother and I came here to hide from that disgrace, to begin a new, clean life under a clean name. Do you think--? Oh, you don't understand!” “I understand all right. This is the first time I HAVE understood. I see now why a clever man like you was willing to spend his days in a place like Denboro. Well, you aren't going to spend any more of them there. You're going to let me make something worth while out of you.” This sounded, in one way, like sanity. But in another-- “Mr. Colton,” I cried, “even if you meant it, which you don't--do you suppose I would go back to New York, where so many know me, and enter your employ under an assumed name? Run the risk of--” “Hush! Enter it under your own name. It's a good name. The Bennetts are one of our oldest families. Ask my wife; she'll tell you that.” “A good name!” “Yes. I declare, Paine--Bennett, I mean--I shall begin to believe you haven't got the sense I credited you with. I can see what has been the matter with you. You came here, you and your sick mother, with the scandal of your father's crookedness hanging over you and her sickness making her super-sensitive, and you two kept the secret and brooded over it so long that you have come to think you are criminals, too. You're not. You haven't done anything crooked. What's the matter with you, man? Be sensible!” “Sensible!” “Yes, sensible, if you can. I don't care who your father was. He was a smart banker, before he went wrong, and I can see now where you inherited your ability. But never mind that. He's dead; let him stay so. I'm not trying to get him. It's you I want.” “You want ME! Do you mean you would take me into your employ, knowing who I am?”