Silence for a time, and then: “You needn’t be afraid to tell me. I’m not a child.” “All right; I’ll tell you what little there is to tell. I got in late and found him in the rooms in the Alamo. He was asleep in a chair when I went in, but he woke up after a while and talked to me. Drew hadn’t exaggerated any, whatsoever. Phil has hit the bottom, good and hard.” “He--he is drinking?” “It is everything in the calendar, I guess--from what he said.” “Did he tell you why?” “No; he said that part of it was a shut door. But he isn’t charging it up to the ‘why,’ whatever that may be; he is calling it by its right name--his morbid self-righteousness and weakness.” “He isn’t weak,” she asserted quickly. “He may say he is, but he isn’t.” “I am merely telling you what he said. He was bitter about it at first; called himself all sorts of hard names--whited sepulchre and the like; but he softened down a bit before I left. What I am most afraid of now is the reaction which is bound to come.” “How do you mean?” Bromley stole a look aside to see how she was taking it. Her gaze was fixed upon the distant mountain skyline and there was nothing to indicate that she was moved by any emotion deeper than a friendly concern for the stumbler. “We both know Philip pretty well,” he prefaced. “When he quits coruscating--and I think he has reached that point already--he will find himself in a valley of humiliation too deep to climb out of; or he will think it is. So he won’t try to climb; he will merely try to expiate. And that pit is likely to be as deep and as mucky as any other.” “There was no mention made of his father?” “No. But I am quite ready to accept your guess; that Philip found his father somewhere--probably that Monday night; and that he didn’t find what he had hoped to find.” “You mean he may have found that his father was really a--a--that he _did_ take the bank’s money?” “Yes, that’s it. From what Philip has told me I have gathered that he was almost, or quite, alone in his belief in his father’s innocence. If it has turned out the other way, that would account for everything that has happened. Phil would feel that he shared the disgrace.” Another little interval of silence, and at its end: “What will you do, Harry?” “I can’t do anything; he made that perfectly plain. The most I could get out of him was a promise that he wouldn’t try to break with me. It is just as you said Saturday at luncheon: he isn’t going to let anybody help him.” “No; I knew he wouldn’t. But you must try to keep hold of him.” “You may be sure I shall do that. You know how much I owe to him--and to you.” “You don’t owe me anything at all.” “Oh, yes, I do. Philip has told me, you know.” “What did he tell you?” “That you were the one who prompted him to take me with him on the prospecting trip a year ago. I was a down-and-out at that time; he knew it and you knew it.” She looked up with the light in the dark eyes that he was never quite able to read or to fathom.