“If you going to raise any obstacle, Stafford, prompted by your pride, for God’s sake, don’t say the word!  You don’t know, you don’t understand!  You speak of ruin as if it meant only the loss of money, the loss of every penny.”  He laughed almost hysterically, and his lips twitched.  “Do you think I should care for that, except for your sake?  No, a thousand times, no!  I’m young still, I could begin the world again!  Yes, and conquer it as I have done before; but”—­his voice sank, and he look round the room with a stealthy glance which shocked and startled Stafford—­“the ruin Ralph Falconer threatens me with means more than the loss of money.  It means the loss of everything!  Of friends, of good name—­of hope!”

Stafford started, and his face grew a trifle hard; and Sir Stephen saw it and made a despairing, appealing gesture with his hand.

“For God’s sake don’t turn away from me, my boy; don’t judge me harshly.  You can’t judge me fairly from your standpoint; your life has been a totally different one from mine, has been lived under different circumstances.  You have never known the temptations to which I have been subjected.  Your life has been an easy one surrounded by honour, while mine has been spent half the time grubbing in the dust and the mire for gold, and the rest fighting—­sometimes with one hand tied behind me!—­against the men who would have robbed me of it.  I have had to fight them with their own weapons—­sometimes they haven’t been clean—­sometimes it has been necessary to do—­to do things!—­God!  Stafford, don’t turn away from me!  I would have kept this from you if I could, but I am obliged to tell you now.  Ralph Falconer knows all the details of my past, he knows of things which—­which, if they were known to the world, would stain the name I have raised to honour, would make it necessary for me to hide my head in a suicide’s grave.”

A low cry burst from Stafford’s lips, and he sank into a chair, and bowed his head upon his hands.

Sir Stephen stood a little way off and looked at him for a minute, then he advanced slowly, half timidly and ashamedly, and laid a trembling hand on Stafford’s shoulder.

“Forgive me, Stafford!” he said, in a low, broken voice.  “I was obliged to tell you.  I’d have kept it from you—­you would never have known—­but Falconer has forced my hand; I was bound to show you how necessary it was that we should have him as friend instead of foe.  You are not—­ashamed of me, my boy; you won’t go back on me?”

In the stress and strain of his emotion the old digger’s slang came readily to his lips.

Stafford took one hand from his face and held it out, and his father grasped it, clinging to it as a drowning man clings to a rock.

“God bless you, my boy!” he said.  “I might have known you wouldn’t turn your back upon me; I might have known that you’d remember that I wasn’t fighting for myself only, but for the son I’m so proud of.”