"You remember that detective you told me about last night. When he left here yesterday about noon he happened to see my father sweeping off the sidewalk. He began to talk to my father, got my father to drinking, gave him some money. And after a while my father--he'd learned it somehow--he told the detective--he told him you were Red Thorpe." The two men were silent a moment, looking at the strained face down which tears were now running. "So that's how it happened!" Rogers breathed. "Yes--my father told!" The tremor in her voice had grown to sharp sobs--of shame, agony, and wrath. "My father brought all this on you. And it's all because of me. If you both hadn't tried to be good to me, my father would not have been here and everything would have turned out right. It's all because of me!--all my fault!--don't you see? I know you'll both hate me now. I know you'll want me to go away. Well--I'm going. But I want to tell you how sorry I am--how sorry!... Good-bye." David wanted to speak to her, but this was Rogers's affair rather than his. She swept them both with her brimming eyes. "Good-bye," she said again, and turned to the door. "Miss Morgan!" called Rogers. She paused and looked at him. "Don't go yet." He rose and came to her with outstretched hand. "It wasn't your fault." She stared dazedly at him. "You're ruined--you told me so last night, and I did it. Yes, I did it." "No. You couldn't help it. You mustn't go at all." She took his hand slowly, in astonishment. "Oughtn't I to go?" she quavered. "You must stay and help bear it," he said. She looked steadfastly into his eyes. "You're mighty good to me," she breathed in a dry whisper. And then a sob broke from her, and turning abruptly she went into the office. * * * * * In the afternoon David walked over to St. Christopher's to meet Helen Chambers. Besides his bitterness, and his suspense over seeing her, David felt as he entered the door of the Mission (what he had felt on his three or four previous visits) a fear of meeting some wrathful, upbraiding body who would recognise him. But he met no one except a group of children coming with books from the library, and unescorted he followed the familiar way to the reception room, where Helen had written she would meet him. This, like the rest of the Mission's interior he had seen, was practically unchanged; and in this maintenance of old arrangements he read reverence for Morton. He wandered about the room, looking at the friendly, brown-framed prints that summoned back the far, ante-prison days. The past, flooding into him, and his sense of the nearness of Helen, crowded out for the time all his bitterness over Rogers's destruction.