r absently, as if the subject did not greatly interest him:

"Patapsco failed and St. George a beggar, eh?--Too bad!--too bad!" Then
some disturbing suspicions must have entered his head, for he roused
himself, looked at Gorsuch keenly, and asked in a searching tone: "And
you came over full tilt, John, to tell me this?"

"I thought you might help. St. George needs all the friends he's got if
this is true--and it looks to me as if it was," answered Gorsuch in a
casual way.

Rutter relaxed his gaze and resumed his position. Had his suspicions
been correct that Gorsuch's interest in Harry was greater than his
interest in the bank's failure, he would have resented it even from John
Gorsuch.

Disarmed by the cool, unflinching gaze of his man of business, his mind
again took up in review all the incidents connected with St. George and
his son, and what part each had played in them.

That Temple--good friend as he had always been--had thwarted him in
every attempt to bring about a reconciliation between himself and Harry,
had been apparent from the very beginning of the difficulty. Even
the affair at the club showed it. This would have ended quite
differently--and he had fully intended it should--had not St. George,
with his cursed officiousness, interfered with his plans. For what he
had really proposed to himself to do, on that spring morning when he had
rolled up to the club in his coach, was to mount the steps, ignore his
son at first, if he should run up against him--(and he had selected the
very hour when he hoped he would run up against him)--and then, when the
boy broke down, as he surely must, to forgive him like a gentleman and
a Rutter, and this, too, before everybody. Seymour would see it--Kate
would hear of it, and the honor of the Rutters remain unblemished.
Moreover, this would silence once and for all those gabblers who had
undertaken to criticise him for what they called his inhumanity in
banishing this only son when he was only trying to bring up that child
in the way he should go. Matters seemed to be coming his way. The
failure of the Patapsco might be his opportunity. St. George would be at
his wits' end; Harry would be forced to choose between the sidewalk and
Moorlands, and the old life would go on as before.

All these thoughts coursed through his mind as he leaned back in his
chair, his lips tight set, the jaw firm and determined--only the lids
quivering as he mastered the tears that crept to the