“It doesn’t seem to me that that ought to enter into it at all,” Alice continued, quietly.  “Even if you knew that it would destroy this belief, you could do nothing else than tell him, could you, Eleanor?  There could be nothing good come from anything kept from father.”

Eleanor felt reproached by the faith which the girl exhibited.  “I have done it to spare him,” she urged.  “If there had been anything in the experience of which I need feel ashamed, I should have felt it necessary to let him know it before we were married.  I thought it all over then, and decided it was wiser not to bring the matter up.  It was weak and cowardly not to do it, I can see that now, but at the time I thought I was acting for the best.”

“If father were to tell you something about his life which seemed incredible, and which might be misinterpreted into something dishonorable to him, would you believe his version of it?”

“Implicitly,” Eleanor replied, with much feeling.

“Then do you think he is less loving or less tender or has less faith than you, Eleanor?”

“Not that, dear,” Eleanor replied; “but he is a man, and a man’s standpoint is essentially different from a woman’s.”

“I never think of him as a man,” the girl replied, simply.  “He is so far above and beyond any man I have ever known that I have never thought of him as only that.”

XXV

A week later the Gorhams’ dinner-table received two unexpected additions.  Gorham had returned from Chicago earlier in the day, and found a telegram awaiting him which announced that Senator Kenmore would call at his house at five o’clock that afternoon.  As he was unable to complete his work upon the accumulated matters which demanded immediate attention, he put the papers into his bag, and took Allen with him to the house in time to keep his appointment with the Senator, intending to continue his day’s labors after his caller had departed.

During the weeks which had elapsed since Gorham’s conversation with Allen, the boy’s attitude toward him manifested a respect so marked that the older man saw in it an effort to atone for his momentary disloyalty; in his work he was devoted and exact to a degree beyond anything he had previously demonstrated; inwardly he was the investigator.  Never had he put himself through so merciless a self-examination.  He felt keenly Alice’s misunderstanding of his dislike of business; he blamed himself for having spoken so freely to Mr. Gorham before he had fully satisfied himself that the doubts he expressed at that time were based on anything beyond inexperience and a lack of knowledge.  He knew that he had committed an error in accusing Covington before he could substantiate his statements.  He was glad, therefore, to be able to work this all out in his own mind during the absence of his chief, yet when Mr. Gorham returned, the boy was still further embarrassed by his special kindliness toward him.