stand all right. This is the first time I HAVE understood. I see
now why a clever man like you was willing to spend his days in a place
like Denboro. Well, you aren't going to spend any more of them there.
You're going to let me make something worth while out of you."

This sounded, in one way, like sanity. But in another--

"Mr. Colton," I cried, "even if you meant it, which you don't--do you
suppose I would go back to New York, where so many know me, and enter
your employ under an assumed name? Run the risk of--"

"Hush! Enter it under your own name. It's a good name. The Bennetts are
one of our oldest families. Ask my wife; she'll tell you that."

"A good name!"

"Yes. I declare, Paine--Bennett, I mean--I shall begin to believe you
haven't got the sense I credited you with. I can see what has been
the matter with you. You came here, you and your sick mother, with the
scandal of your father's crookedness hanging over you and her sickness
making her super-sensitive, and you two kept the secret and brooded over
it so long that you have come to think you are criminals, too. You're
not. You haven't done anything crooked. What's the matter with you, man?
Be sensible!"

"Sensible!"

"Yes, sensible, if you can. I don't care who your father was. He was
a smart banker, before he went wrong, and I can see now where you
inherited your ability. But never mind that. He's dead; let him stay so.
I'm not trying to get him. It's you I want."

"You want ME! Do you mean you would take me into your employ, knowing
who I am?"

"Sure! It is because I know WHAT you are that I want you."

"Mr. Colton, you--I don't know what to say to you."

"Try saying 'yes' and see how it seems. It will be a change, anyhow."

"No, no! I cannot; it is impossible."

"Oh, you make me weary! . . . Humph! What is it now? Any more
'reasons'?"

"Yes." I faced him squarely. "Yes," I said, "there is another reason,
one that makes it impossible, utterly impossible, if nothing else did.
When I tell you what it is you will understand what I mean and agree
with me. Your daughter and I have been thrown together a great deal
since she came to Denboro. Our meetings have not been of my seeking, nor
of hers. Of late I have realized that, for my own sake, for the sake of
my peace of mind, I must not meet her. I must not be where she is. I--"

"Here! Stop!" he broke in sharply. "What is this? Do you mean to tell me
that you and Mabel--"

"It is not her faul