t he
must be exhausted, and once more I rose to go.

"Stop! Stay where you are," he ordered. "I haven't got the answer to
you yet, and I know it. There's something back of all this, something
I don't know about. I'm going to find out what it is, if it takes me a
year. You can tell me now, if you want to. It will save time. What is
the real reason why you won't take my offer?"

I don't know why I did it. I had kept the secret all the years and
certainly, when I entered that room, I had no intention of revealing it.
Yet, now, when he asked this question I turned on him and blurted out
what I had sworn no one--least of all he or his--should ever know.

"I'll tell you why," I cried, desperately. "I can't take the place you
offer because you know nothing about me. You don't know who I am. If you
did you . . . . Mr. Colton, you don't even know my name."

He looked at me and shook his head, impatiently. "Either you ARE crazy,
or I am," he muttered. "Don't know your name!"

"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 under