lter's face which had been fixed and dogged and he
got up from in front of his trunk where he had been kneeling and came up
to the table.

"Sit down there," said Paul gravely. Walter sat down opposite his
father, and the two, father and son, looked at each other earnestly
across the table.

CHAPTER III

PAUL DOUGLAS was trying to think of his own boyhood and his temptations
as he faced his own son on that memorable afternoon. His anger at the
boy had almost subsided. The feeling that remained was a feeling of
grief and fear mingled at the anticipation of a failure on Walter's part
to realise the grave nature of the crisis through which he was passing.

"I've been thinking over all this, Walter," Paul began slowly, "and I am
willing you should remain here on certain conditions."

"Oh, father, I'll do anything," Walter began impulsively.

"Let me state them," his father went on gravely. "They may seem hard to
you. But I'm older than you and have a right to expect obedience if the
terms are just.

"In the first place I shall expect you to earn the amount you have
incurred with your gambling and repay me. Is that fair?"

"Yes," Walter spoke, wincing at his father's use of the word. "I wish
you would not say 'gambling' father. It was a friendly wager. It is the
regular college custom."

"I do not care what you call it or what the custom is here," said Paul,
his anger beginning to flame up. "The wager, the custom, the whatever
you call it, is gambling. It is gambling as much as any custom at Monte
Carlo or any of the gambling halls of Europe. The principle is the same
always; it is the desire and the hope of getting something for nothing,
a thing totally contrary to every divine law of life. Don't you see it,
Walter? Do you think I would be so much disturbed about the matter if it
were of little account?"

"No, I suppose not."

Paul looked at the boy with growing earnestness. It was not reassuring
to consider the possibility of his boy growing up with blunted ideals,
with feeble convictions and a faint sense of the eternal difference
between sharp cut right and wrong. The most sorrowful experience in Paul
Douglas's life might be coming to him at this time if he should find his
own son lacking in the real essentials of moral earnestness.

"Then," he went on, "another condition of your remaining here is that
you promise me never to bet on anything again."

Walter interrupted eagerly, "You don't need to worry