"You think it has, Mr. Gorham; but that is where the gambler's chance comes in. It is a desperate chance, and it is one which I could never have believed myself capable of taking. It simply shows how far a man will go when forced against the wall."

"I am tiring of this play-acting," protested Gorham. "If you have anything to say, say it, or else leave me to devote my time to matters which require it."

Covington hesitated even then. The weapon was an ugly one to handle, and there were elements in him which rebelled. Slowly he drew the bulky paper from his pocket, not meeting Gorham's steady gaze.

"More affidavits?" asked Gorham. "What is the nature of them this time?"

"I am more keenly aware of how despicable this is than you will give me credit," he said. "I have lived among gentlemen long enough to recognize that to those who know of this, my act separates me from the society of which I have been a part. But I have chosen. With the wealth and power which this will bring me, I can buy back what now I seem to forfeit."

He placed the papers in Mr. Gorham's hands, turning his pale face away, and drumming nervously on the arm of his chair with his fingers. The minutes seemed hours, and when he turned, he found Gorham's penetrating eye fixed firmly upon him. He had counted on the strength of the statements contained in the affidavits to protect him from personal violence, yet he half suspected Gorham's purpose when he rose. His host, however, walked quietly to the wall and pressed the button, then noiselessly resumed his seat. The awful silence was in itself a strain on Covington. He wished Gorham would speak, even though he thought he knew the nature of what those first words would be. Presently Riley opened the door.

"Ask Mrs. Gorham and Miss Alice to come here, Riley."

"Not Alice!" Covington cried.

Again silence pervaded the room, Gorham rereading the papers, and Covington still drumming on the arm of his chair. As Eleanor and Alice entered they greeted Covington cordially, but he drew back without accepting the outstretched hands.

"We have a matter to discuss which affects us all," Gorham said, handing Eleanor one of the papers. "Please read this, but make no comment until later."

The first few words conveyed its nature to her, and she swayed for a moment as if she might fall. Alice sprang to her side.

"What is it, Eleanor,—let me read it with you. Shall I, daddy?"

Gorham nodded. When they had finished, Eleanor started to speak, but her husband checked her. The momentary faintness had passed, and she stood erect, eager for the word from Gorham which would permit her to break the silence.

"Where did this come from?" Alice demanded.

"Mr. Covington just brought it to me."

"What did you do to the man who dared to draw it up?" she asked indignantly of Covington.

"Mr. Covington is the man who had it drawn up," her father answered. "Now we will listen to what he has to say about it."

The man squared himself for the issue.

"You have read it," he said huskily, "and you value your wife's reputation?"

"Yes, beyond anything and everything else."

"Beyond the Consolidated Companies and the gratification of injuring me with the committee?"

"Yes."

Covington gained confidence from the ease with which all was moving. A few minutes more of this as against a lifetime of wealth and power! It was worth the degradation. "It is sometimes necessary to walk through filth and slime to attain high places," he remembered Gorham had once told him.

"Would you agree to stand one side and give me this chance, rather than have a blemish on your wife's name made public?"

"Yes," was the firm reply.

Eleanor had lived a century during the conversation. Sitting now in the shadow of the room, she turned her eyes first toward one speaker and then the other, wondering all the while how it was to end. If only she had told Robert herself before this moment! She could not understand her husband's passive attitude. She knew him to be slow to anger, yet she also knew well the strength of the passion which lay controlled beneath his calm exterior. What Covington had said and the manner in which he had said it would, under ordinary circumstances, have aroused Gorham to stern indignation. She could only attribute his present patience to an uncertainty which lay in his own mind as to the truth of the story which he had read; but when he answered Covington's questions, indicating which choice he would make, she could endure it no longer. Rising quickly, she stood between the two men, her face turned toward Gorham.

"Robert," she said, "what do you mean? This man is asking you to give up the Consolidated Companies."

"I understand it, Eleanor," Gorham replied. "I would prefer to do so rather than have a single breath of scandal or even suspicion attach itself to you."

Eleanor drew herself up very straight, and, paying no attention to Covington, she addressed herself passionately to her husband.

"Look at me, Robert, look into my eyes, and tell me if you see there anything of which I need to feel ashamed. You have read this story, now you shall hear mine. It is one which you should have heard long ago, Robert, but I hesitated to speak, not because I was ashamed of anything which happened, but because I feared just the interpretation which has now been put upon it. You know all about my marriage to Ralph Buckner; you know all about Carina's death, and you shall know all which I am able to tell any one, or which I myself know, of what happened during the awful days which followed."

Eleanor's voice trembled, but the excitement of the moment kept her from breaking down.

"When I lifted that little form from the trail and pressed it to my heart I knew that she was dead. My one thought in the face of the awful blow which had come to me was to get away from the man who had inflicted it. Somehow, with Carina in my arms, I got upon the mare, and again I strained the little body to my heart and forgot all else except my overpowering grief. The mare walked on unguided, uncontrolled,—I knew not where,—I cared not where. I believe I never should have stopped her myself, but suddenly a man appeared by the side of the trail who saw that something was wrong, and he asked if he could be of help. At these first words of sympathy I lost control of myself, and made some incoherent reply. From that time on I was a child myself, and he a kind, loving, guiding father. Walking beside me and helping to support me, we soon reached the shack in which he lived. He took the dead child from my arms, and carried it tenderly into the house; then he came back and helped me to dismount. He asked no further questions, but led me inside, too, soothing my outburst of grief as the reaction came in full force. Of what happened afterward I have no memory. For the time, I lost my reason, and he, day by day, night by night, watched over me, bathing my hot forehead, moistening my parched lips, trying to give me courage to pass through the awful ordeal.

"It was all of two weeks that I was there, so he told me afterward. As my reason returned, his first thought was to get me back to my father's ranch, having learned who I was and enough of what had happened to understand the situation. Before we left, he took me to the little mound back of the shack, where I said 'good-bye' to the one ray of sunshine which had entered my life during those awful years. Then he helped me on my mare and mounted his own horse. Together we rode silently back over the seven or eight miles, only to learn that my father had suddenly died, partly from the shock and partly from my unexplained absence. The old man's strength could not endure the double blow.

"In dismay I turned to my protector, and he at once answered the query which he read in my eyes. He made arrangements, and accompanied me to Denver, leaving me in a hospital there, where for two months I hovered between life and death, owing to a relapse. I saw him only once again, when he came to the hospital and told me that he had placed my affairs in the hands of a certain lawyer, who would look after what property my father left, and would advise me after I was able to leave the hospital. Then he passed out of my life, though I was told later that he stayed in Denver until I was out of danger, before he returned East. In my condition and because of the excitement, his name was a blank to me from the moment I left the hospital, and I have striven ever since to recall it. The lawyer to whom he referred me professed not to know it, and simply said that the man had described himself as a prospector from the East."

As Eleanor paused from weakness, Covington glanced across to Gorham.

"Her story doesn't differ much from that contained in the affidavit," he remarked.

"No," Gorham answered, shortly; "it is the same story with a different interpretation."

"What do you think of it now?"

"Just as I have from the beginning."

"You don't believe me!" Eleanor cried, half-beseechingly, half-reproachfully. "I don't wonder,—it is past belief."

"You must believe her, daddy," Alice insisted, ready to burst into tears; "she has tried so many times to tell you."

"I do believe you, Eleanor," Gorham replied. "And what is more, I know that you speak the truth."

"The public may not be so generous," suggested Covington.

"You forget that I have great faith in that same public," Gorham answered, strangely calm in the face of such great provocation.

"You know it, Robert?" Eleanor asked, scarcely believing what she heard. "How can you know it? You mean that your faith in me is strong enough to make you believe it."

"You may tell them that story, Covington," Gorham said, rising; "but it will make it even more interesting if you add the finale which you are going to witness now."

Then he turned to his wife and took her hand in his.

"Would you know that prospector if you saw him again?" he asked.

"I am sure I should," she replied, wonderingly.

"Must he still wear his full beard and his old corduroy clothes, with a blue handkerchief knotted around his throat, to recall himself to you? Must I tell you that he called himself 'Roberts'?"

"Roberts!" she gasped, gazing at him spellbound, "—how could you know?"

"Look at me again, Eleanor," he urged with infinite tenderness, but with an eager expectancy manifest in every feature,—"look hard."

She drew back speechless as the truth came to her.

"Oh, my Robert," she cried at last, with a joy in her voice which thrilled her hearers, "you—you were that man!"

It seemed a sacrilege to the two spectators of the unexpected climax of this intimate personal drama to remain, so instinctively they both withdrew silently to the drawing-room, leaving Eleanor closely enfolded in her husband's arms. For the first time since Covington had disclosed himself, Alice was alone with him. Wrought up as the girl had been by the conflicting emotions which had consumed her strength during the past moments, and relieved beyond measure by the final outcome of what had promised only a tragedy, yet her eyes filled with tears as she looked at him.

"Why did you do this?" she asked. "Why did you come into my life to teach me that this beautiful world of ours can contain so much that is bad?—you, whom I respected and admired, and whom I was beginning to believe I loved? How could you do it?"

Covington made no answer to the impelling voice which spoke. The girl, with her varying moods and changing conceits, who had so amused him, had vanished, and in her place he saw the woman, supreme in the strength of asserting that which is ever woman's creed,—justice and right. He could sense, in her attitude, as in her words, that her resentment was not because of the indignity which he had forced upon herself, but rather because of the wrong he had done to those she loved. What a woman to have called his wife,—what a woman to have lived up to as a husband!

"I must see your father again," he said when he spoke at last. "Let us go back to them."

Covington stood in the doorway of the library as Alice slipped quietly into the room and took her place beside Eleanor and her father. As he looked upon the three, forming a group into which he had almost entered, he realized the infinite distance which now separated them. Their total disregard of his presence, Gorham's lack of open resentment, Alice's indifference,—all told him that in their eyes he was only the pariah, beneath their contempt, suffered to remain there until he saw fit to rid them of his presence. Yet he could not leave them thus. Somewhere within him a something, until now quiescent, demanded recognition and insisted upon expression. Why had it waited until now! It was a changed John Covington who spoke from that doorway, when at last silence became unendurable. The hard lines in the face had softened, and the previously insistent voice now betrayed realization of the present, and hopelessness for the future. The fires of truth and love and faith and honor, which burned so brightly before him, at least touched him with their heat. God pity him!

"It is all over, Mr. Gorham," he forced himself to say. "It is not you who have defeated me, it is I who have defeated myself. I offer no defence. I despised myself before I did this, I despise myself still further for having done it. I could not believe you sincere,—I could not believe any man capable of living the creed you preached. I accept the penalty which you or other men may impose upon me."

"You have imposed your own penalty, Covington," Gorham replied. "You, who have destroyed the way-marks to misguide others, now find yourself adrift because of your own act. You are a young man. If you are honest in what you now say, there is still hope for you. Fight those overpowering ambitions which have brought you to the brink until you have them properly controlled, then guide your undoubted abilities along lines which men recognize as true."

Covington bowed his head, and without a word disappeared. As the outer door closed Alice turned to her father, but her thought was not of the man who had passed from their lives.

"You were that prospector, daddy? Why did you never tell Eleanor?"

"I have tried to make her recognize me ever since we were married, dear. I have tried to make her tell me the story, hoping that the repetition might recall in her heart some association which would link me with that past, sad as it was to her. You never knew, Alice, of that experience when I went West in search of health, but now you know why I hurried back to Denver; why I kept myself constantly informed regarding the recovery and later life of this little woman who came into my heart during those days when she was passing through her agony. I loved her then, but she was another man's wife. I knew when the court gave her back her freedom, and I lost no time in winning her at the first opportunity which offered."

"How could I have recognized you, ill as I was then,—and without your old prospector's clothes and your full beard? You should have told me."

"I wanted your love, dear heart, not your gratitude."

She tenderly pushed back the gray hair from the high forehead, and pressed her lips against it reverently.

"You have both, Robert,—you have always had them."



XXX

Sanford located Allen's apartment from the address Gorham had given him. He stood before the entrance for several moments, regarding its pretentious appearance and the aristocratic neighborhood.

"Gorham must have made a mistake," he muttered; "this can't be the place."

But the handsome Gothic figures over the doorway corresponded with those written upon the slip of paper, so he approached the elevator boy, resplendent in his brass buttons.

"Does Mr. Allen Sanford live here?" he demanded.

"Yes, sir; eighth floor. What name shall I say, sir?"

"You needn't say any name,—I'll say it myself. I'm his father. Rents must be cheaper than they used to be," he remarked to himself in the elevator. "I guess the boy hasn't suffered much."

Allen had just risen from the window-seat after the painful revelry he had indulged in since Patricia and Riley left him. The ringing of the bell annoyed him. He was in no mood to see any one, and he resented the intrusion. Then he threw the door open and saw his father standing there. For a long moment he stood speechless with amazement, when his face broke into a smile of welcome which touched the old man's heart.

"The pater!" he cried, and in another moment he had him grasped in his arms with a grip which almost crushed him.

"What do you mean, you young reprobate," Sanford gasped, struggling to escape. "I'm not a football dummy. Let me get my breath."

Allen dragged him into the room, unwilling to release him.

"The dear old pater," he cried again, depositing him in the great Morris chair, and drawing back to regard him joyfully. "You've come just in time. There are my trunks packed all ready to go to you. You said I'd come back, and you were right. Oh, pater, I've made an awful mess of things. You knew that I was no good, but I've had to find it out for myself."

"Nothing of the sort," blubbered the old man, striving earnestly to conceal the emotion which almost overcame him as a result of the boy's welcome. "Any one who says you're no good will have to settle with me. You're my son, that's what you are, and no Sanford was ever a failure yet."

"Then you must keep me from being the first."

"Nothing of the sort;—why do you try to make me lose my temper? Gorham says—"

"You've seen Mr. Gorham?" Allen interrupted, his heart leaping at the sound of the name. "What did he say?"

"Never mind what he said," Sanford replied, remembering the injunction laid upon him. Then he looked about him. "Gorham must have paid you a good deal more than you were worth," he remarked significantly.

"He did," admitted Allen, and then divining what was in his father's mind; "but not enough for this."

"You've run in debt, have you?" Allen noticed that the question did not contain the usual sting. The old man would have rejoiced at this opportunity to express his sympathy in the only way he knew how.

"Not yet. I sold my motor and some other things."

"Had to live like a gentleman, whatever your salary, didn't you?"

"I ought not to have done it," the boy admitted.

"Nothing of the sort," Sanford sputtered, again resorting to his favorite phrase. "My son has to live like a gentleman,—that's what I educated him for. Now help me off with my coat, and tell me all the damn fool things you've been doing."

Their conference lasted well into the afternoon,—an afternoon filled with surprises for them both. For the first time Allen found his father an interested, sympathetic listener; for the first time Stephen Sanford came to know his son. The boy made no effort to spare himself, though eager for his father to realize that he had been earnest and industrious, albeit the net results of this had been but failure. Mr. Gorham had done so much for him, and he had tried to assimilate the lessons both from his deeds and from his words; but instead he had seen chimeras breathing fire at every turn, and had charged them quixote-like to find them but windmills, harmful only to himself. He enlarged upon the personal characteristics of the directors and the other business men with whom he came in contact,—many of them well known to his listener,—and Sanford marvelled at the accuracy of the boy's insight, and the integrity of the portraits. Gorham was right,—Allen had developed, and far beyond what he himself realized. He was now a man to be reckoned with rather than a boy to be disciplined.

The old man's keen business sense also for the first time grasped the tremendous scope of Gorham's gigantic project. There was no room left to doubt the strength of the appeal of the absolute honesty of purpose after listening to Allen's unconsciously irresistible testimony. In words made pregnant by the simplicity of their utterance, he described Gorham the man and Gorham the Colossus of the business world; he pictured the waves of avarice and intrigue and discontent which he thought he saw beating against the feet of this towering figure, unheeded and unrecognized because so far beneath it; he told of his own puny efforts to warn this giant of the storm which he thought he saw approaching, but in doing this he had betrayed his own ignorance, and had prepared the pit into which he himself had fallen.

"And the worst of it all is," Allen concluded, "that I can't see even now where I was wrong; but if Mr. Gorham told me that Napoleon Bonaparte discovered America I would know that, all previous statements to the contrary, he was right."

"H'm!" ejaculated Sanford, eager to break over the injunction Gorham had placed upon him. "I don't believe there's anything in what you've said yet that you can't live down. Now I suppose if Gorham had told you that we'd had our lunch, the fact that your father was starving to death wouldn't be accepted as evidence worthy of consideration."

Allen laughed as he pulled out his watch, his mind easier and his heart lighter than it had been for months.

"I had forgotten all about that, and it's after four o'clock. Come on out with me, and I'll give you a revised version of the 'fatted calf' story."

"You think it is the return of the prodigal father, do you?"

"I hope we are both prodigals, you dear old pater," Allen replied, seriously; "I hope we both need each other so much that we never can exist alone again."

"All right; but we'd better go easy with the calf, for I've accepted a dinner invitation for us both to-night."

"You have?" Allen asked, disappointed that their visit was to be interrupted. "Where?"

"At Gorham's."

"I couldn't go there again, pater," he protested quickly. "He's just asking me because he wants you."

"No; he wants to talk with you, especially."

"With me?" Allen's face sobered. "He thinks he was harsh the other night. I would rather not open up the whole subject again. There are special reasons. Please go without me."

"You don't want to do anything which will make him think worse of you than he does now, do you?"

"No," was the frank reply, into which a genuine note of sorrow entered.

"Then we'll dine with him, as he asks us to. Now lead on to that calf, but make it a little one."

* * * * *

Allen found himself the only one at the dinner-table who seemed to be laboring under any restraint. Eleanor and Alice were in better spirits than he had seen them for months, Gorham was an ideal host, conversing with Sanford and with Allen upon lighter topics in a way which seemed to show entire forgetfulness of what had gone before. It seemed almost heartless to the boy to find these friends, so dear to him, able to conduct themselves in so matter-of-fact a manner while he was in the grip of his own life tragedy. But he could not blame them. He had assumed much which they had never granted. This last dinner together, made possible by his father's presence in New York, was intended as a lesson to him, and as Mr. Gorham had planned it, then it must be for his good. He would play his part, and, concealing the pain it cost him, he entered into the conversation with an abandon which surprised them all.

It was not until they had gathered in the library, whither Gorham had especially invited them after the dinner was over, that the atmosphere changed. Allen saw the expression on Gorham's face deepen into that serious aspect which always signified matters of important moment.

"I find myself face to face with certain duties and responsibilities," Gorham began, "which appall me with their far-reaching significance, and I have asked you, who are the nearest and dearest to me, to be witnesses of my faithful performance of them, to the extent of my understanding."

Gorham paused, and seemed to deliberate before making his next statement, unconscious of the tenseness of the silence which his words had produced.

"First of all, it is my immediate intention to take such steps as are necessary to bring about the disintegration of the Consolidated Companies."

"But you can't do it," Sanford declared. "The corporation is solvent, the directors and the stockholders will of course be against it, and you will be powerless." "I have considered all that," Gorham replied, quietly.

"What you say might be true six months from now, if the Executive Committee succeed in wrenching my control from me; but to-day I have the strength. The stockholders have invested because of their faith in me; because of this same faith they will accept my statement that the Companies' future is imperilled,—and the Government itself will help me to accomplish my purpose."

"You are convinced, then, that the principles you built on are wrong?" asked Sanford, unable to keep from showing some satisfaction in his voice.

"No," Gorham replied, firmly. "The principles are right,—the wrong lies in that human instinct which finds itself incapable of living up to its best standard. I believed that my success had been due to a recognition of my principle, when in reality it came from the simplest possible expression of self-interest. If we go on, the Companies' continued success means a growth beyond my control,—recent events show that it has almost reached that point already,—and when once in the hands of others, it can be nothing but a menace to the people.

"And now for the most humiliating confession of all: I myself have been guilty of an exercise of my own self-interest as flagrant as any of my associates, though in a different way. Their lust has been for gold, while mine has been for a justification of an idea. My self-interest has been less malignant in its possible effects, but it has been my controlling influence none the less. With due humility, I confess that I have attempted to assume a role which belongs to Providence, and that no man has a right to do. I have been guilty of violating certain laws of life, just as my associates have violated other laws which to me demand observance; but I have recognized the tendency of things to gravitate back to their natural positions before it is too late for me not to make certain that they do so. In order to prevent this corporation from becoming a great power for evil, and as a final evidence of the strength which I still possess, I propose to force its dissolution."

"You have a big contract on your hands, Gorham," Sanford replied; "I don't believe even you can do it."

"On Tuesday next," Gorham continued, "the Senate Committee will consider a bill which is in reality an amendment to the Sherman Act, and is intended to give the Government the power to discriminate between good and bad trusts. The Consolidated Companies is to be cited as a case in point, and they are depending upon me to advance the principal arguments for the passage of the bill. All the other big interests are naturally against it, and they are forcing the issue, hoping to compel the Government to act against the Consolidated Companies, and thus call down the wrath of the people upon trust legislation as a whole. If the masses find that the one agency which has reduced their cost of living is prevented from continuing its co-operative work, they will effectually put a stop to further interference, and the other interests will be the gainers."

"A clever game," Sanford exclaimed.

"But now I am convinced there are no 'good' trusts, as I have been pleased to call them. Those combinations, like the Consolidated Companies, which are really a benefit to the people to-day, may, as again in the case of the Consolidated Companies, become their greatest enemy to-morrow. I am prepared to say that all this talk—much of which I have made myself—to the effect that combination effects economies of which the public receives the benefit, is true only for a time. Just so soon as the combinations become monopolies, amounts saved by the economies simply go to swell the profits for the stockholders. Competition must not be eliminated—it is the vital spark which keeps alive the welfare of the country."

"You are going to say all this before the Senate Committee?"

"Yes, and more. I am going to use the Consolidated Companies as an example, and urge immediate active enforcement of the Sherman Act against all consolidations which aim at monopolies or the restraint of trade. The Attorney-General said that this would mean an industrial reign of terror. So be it. Even that is better than this gradual strangling of the people's rights, which is now being carried on with legislative approval. I shall at least have the satisfaction of performing this one act in the interests of the people, even though I must forego the continued administration of a corporation honestly devoted to their welfare. This statement from me, and the position I take regarding my own corporation, will go far toward defeating those other malign interests which hope to gain by their attack upon me."

Allen's face had been a study while Mr. Gorham was speaking, and Alice had particularly noted the varying emotions it expressed. She saw there first the astonished incredulity at her father's determination to dissolve the Companies; then the wonder as he heard Gorham state conclusions which coincided with those he had arrived at earlier; and finally the radiant joy as the realization came, not fully but in part, that his own understanding of the situation had not been all at fault. It needed only the words which Gorham added to make the world look bright again. But it was to his father rather than to Allen that Gorham addressed himself.

"And now, Stephen, as to this boy. You and I have done our best to make him think the world is wrong side up; but I am more to blame because I had the better opportunity to study his development, beneath my own eyes. I taught him that imagination was an essential ingredient of a successful business man, to enable him to grasp each situation as a whole, and to conceive its dangers and its possibilities. Yet, when he exercised that very quality, and came to me frankly with the results of his efforts, I refused to recognize my own handiwork. I taught him my altruistic creed, and then blamed him when he used it as his standard, and was unhappy that those around him failed to measure up to it. Never has a man been more blind than I. Never has a man settled back, so self-satisfied, with so determined a conviction that because he willed things to be so, then they were so. I have merged the white thread of my new creed with the black one of the old business morals I first learned; his pattern has been wholly woven from the white.

"My boy," he added, turning to Allen, "for the first time in my life I ask a man's forgiveness. In the face of the greatest discouragements, you have shown yourself true, and I congratulate you and your father upon the future which you have before you. I want you to stay with me until the Consolidated Companies has been placed in a position of safety to itself and to its stockholders, then you may choose your own career."

"No Sanford ever made a failure yet," Stephen proudly repeated.

"But, Mr. Gorham—" Allen began, surprised into confusion by the unstinted praise; but Alice interrupted him.

"So this is my business creation!" she exclaimed, with satisfaction. Allen looked first at her and then at Mr. Gorham. Then he smiled consciously.

"While you are about it, Mr. Gorham," he said, impulsively, "I wish you would disintegrate Alice and Mr. Covington."

A momentary shadow passed over the faces of all who knew what had occurred.

"That dissolution took place last night," Mr. Gorham replied, quietly.

Alice's cheeks were flaming, but her smile was irresistible as she spoke.

"I'll tell you all about it, Allen, if you'll come into the conservatory."



XXXI

A great event requires retrospective consideration. Unlike the laws of perspective, distance gives it greater size. So it was with Gorham's supreme and final demonstration of his strength. To Covington, who, true to his promise of the night before, was present at this crucial meeting of the Board of Directors, and marvelled that his chief demanded of him only a statement regarding the real purchaser of the stock, this dissolution of the Consolidated Companies appeared as an act of sacrilege; to his associates, aghast at the knowledge that they were powerless to prevent him, it seemed the epitome of treachery; to his family it meant a sublime exhibit of self-sacrifice;—to himself it was the crowning point of his career, and a justification of his life-work.

"You know what this means?" Litchfield had demanded of him. "You realize that your action to-morrow will deprive us of millions, and will plunge the country into a panic which will cost that dear public which you profess to love, more than we should have kept from them in a decade?"

"Yes," replied Gorham, resolutely; "I realize it all. It is a simple case of surgery—it may be necessary to sacrifice the limb to save the life. You, gentlemen, have had it in your power to place the standard of the business world so high that no longer would other nations gaze at our marvellous machine, appalled by its pace—politically, socially, financially—wondering whether they or we read correctly the danger-signals ahead. You have had it in your power, and you refused to embrace the opportunity; and if men of your intelligence and high standing in the world are not ready for it, then the world itself is not ready. The people have trusted themselves to me, and have placed in my hands power beyond that which has ever yet been given; now that I have learned how that power may be misused against them, I will prevent their betrayal."

From his office, Gorham returned to his home before leaving for Washington. It was from Riley's hand, as he entered, that he received the telegram from his Denver attorneys, announcing that the lawyer, Jennings, was already on his way East, bringing with him absolute evidence that the divorce papers had been properly served on Buckner. Strengthened for the ordeal before him by the removal of this burden, he sought Eleanor; but she met him in the hallway before he reached her room.

"Robert," she said, impulsively, after looking for a moment searchingly into his face—"something has happened, and the light in your eyes tells me that all is well. You have decided not to take that awful step."

"All is well, dear heart," he repeated, handing her the telegram; "but it would not be so except that the 'awful step' has already been taken."

"Then there is no doubt regarding the divorce?" she cried, joyfully, after reading the telegram.

"There never has been," he replied, as he pressed her to him.

"May I tell the children?" she asked, happily, a moment later, and Alice and Allen responded quickly.

The Consolidated Companies was forgotten in the joy of the new knowledge, and it was Allen who first made reference to it.

"Are you really going to put things through as you said, Mr. Gorham?"

"The die is cast, my boy; I leave for Washington to-night."

"Then monopolies are doomed?"

"Monopolies can never be prevented," Gorham answered, seriously, "but I hope that my action to-morrow will go far toward forcing their control. You and I have seen the impossibility of trying to make them change their spots. I thought I had solved the problem, but I was wrong. Far ahead in the future, beyond the point which our present vision reaches, perhaps the solution lies. Until it is found, the Government must protect itself and the people it represents."

"Please fix it so as to make one exception," the boy pleaded. As Gorham looked at him for explanation, he drew Alice closely to him. "Please let this monopoly be exempt from governmental interference."

A stifled sob, entirely out of place in the presence of such general rejoicing, came from a little human ball rolled up on the steps below them. Eleanor and Allen quickly sprang toward her, but the boy better understood Patricia's tears. He sat beside her, and wrapped his great arms around her.

"Don't cry, Lady Pat," he entreated.

"I can't help it," she moaned. "I haven't any Sir Launcelot, and you haven't stormed the castle, and I've lost my silken ladder, and I want to die so that I can go up to heaven and be mean to the angels."

"Oh, no, no!" he begged. "I've tried to think it all out, and the only thing I can do is to cut myself in two pieces the way King Solomon decided to do with the baby. Do you remember?"

"But he didn't do it," replied Patricia, showing surprising knowledge of the Scriptures.

"Well, I haven't done it yet—but I will if you say so."

"Will you really?" The child's mind was already diverted from its tragedy. "But then you couldn't wear armor or ride a horse, or storm a castle, or do any of those things."

"Not without messing everything all up," Allen admitted, sorrowfully; "but that's the best thing I can think of."

Patricia was seized with an inspiration. "Will you swear to be my Knight every time Alice is mean and horrid to you?"

"I swear," Allen responded in a sepulchral voice, his eyes laughing at the older girl above him.

"Then I'll get you most of the time," Patricia announced, joyfully; and she suffered herself to join the group in the hallway.

"So you have decided to abandon your business career?" Gorham asked, turning to Alice.

"No, daddy," she replied, slyly. "I'm just changing my company from a private corporation into a partnership."

Gorham drew her to him and kissed her tenderly. Then he held out his disengaged hand to Allen.

"The world is before you. From the time it was created, man has striven to force from it the secret of unlimited power. Events have sometimes seemed to give encouragement, but ever at the end of each seeming success has come the unmistakable warning of a wisely jealous God. Omnipotence is not for mortals. The only lever which really moves the world is love, and it rests on a fulcrum of honor."



THE END