“He is planning to go back to you, Stephen, but I shan’t let him if I can help it.  I have made him think that his work has been a failure, when in reality his vision has been clearer than mine.  But don’t tell him this.  Let your talk be of yourselves.  Then bring him to me to-morrow for dinner, and let me show him what he really is.”

“I told you he’d make a fine business man,” Stephen could not resist saying.  “You remember that.”

“I do,” laughed Gorham.  “That is why I gave him the chance.  You remember asking me to do it, don’t you?”

“There’s another thing I told you, Robert,—­that you never could do business on the basis you planned unless you had angels all the way up from the office boy to the Board of Directors.”

“It has been my fault in not being able to distinguish between angels and mortals,” Gorham replied seriously, his mind reverting to the great problem which still lay unsolved before him.  “I am not willing yet to admit that the basis is wrong,—­the error must rest in the building.  Good-night, Stephen.  Be sure to bring Allen with you to-morrow.”

* * * * *

Covington entered the library, walking with short, quick steps quite unlike his usual deliberate gait, and sat down in the chair just vacated by Mr. Sanford.  Gorham noted at once the change which had come over his features, even during the few hours which had elapsed since morning.  For the first time his eyes showed a nervous unrest, the lines about his mouth had settled into a hard, disagreeable expression, and his whole manner evidenced the strain he was enduring.  Gorham noted all this, and in a measure it surprised him.  If Covington was so constituted that he could play the hypocrite, he would not have supposed his sensibilities acute enough to overwhelm him in the unmasking.

“You are wondering why I desired this interview,” Covington began.  “You cannot understand what there is left for me to say to you in view of what has happened.  I could have bluffed this out for a time, but it was no use.  There are other developments which will follow on the heels of this which make it useless to temporize.  I have played the game my way, letting you make the rules, believing that when it came to the showdown my cards would be strong enough to win.  They would be under normal circumstances, but you’ve called my hand too soon.  You see before you a desperate man, Mr. Gorham, upon whom you have forced the necessity of taking a gambler’s chance.  That is why I am here to-night.”

“You must be implicated in matters far deeper than I have knowledge to talk like this, Covington.  You have been false to me and false to the Companies, but after all there is nothing criminal in what you have done.  To me, the greatest crime a man can commit is so to forget the manhood with which his Maker endowed him, as to prostitute it for temporary personal advantage, but the law looks upon other lesser