“You can believe me when I tell you that I ran down that dock and found the man.  He remembered you all well, remembered you children when you were taken up with some other survivors, and he said he thought that some family had taken you to Hong-Kong.

“I canceled my passage to Liverpool and immediately sailed for China.  Still, my troubles were not over, for it was weeks before I finally located you babies, Quentin and Zita.

“I won’t burden you with the difficulties I encountered before the English family, the Danes, with whom I found you, would consent to give you up.  Nor will I take time to tell of our return to New York through San Francisco.

“Let it suffice for you to know that we arrived safely after I had completely circled the world.  I sent you to good schools, and when Zita was old enough I made her my secretary so that I could watch over her.  Quentin, being older, I had not dared to have around at first.  I feared he might question me too closely.  And what answer could I give him?  Could I tell him that International Patents had driven his father into exile, that I had been partly the cause, the indirect cause, it is true, but still the cause of his mother’s death?  I never found the courage to do that and so I sent him to a preparatory school and later to college.  Years wiped out his childhood recollections and when he came here he came as a stranger employed in the company’s laboratory.  I make no defense, but I assure you all that my own sufferings have atoned for all the wrongs I have done.”

Brent broke down and was almost weeping, when Quentin and Eva moved over to his side and reassured him.

As soon as Brent had recovered from his weakness he wanted to know all that had happened since he had been unconscious under the drug, and as he listened he was aghast at the Automaton and Balcom’s villainy.

“I’ve something here that will stop him, though,” added Quentin, as he showed the new gas-gun he had invented and explained its deadly properties.  “Bring him on again—­I’m ready.”

“Quentin—­please don’t joke about that terrible monster,” shivered Eva.  “It has injured us so often—­I don’t even want to talk about it—­or about the government that asked you to come here and set things right.  Let us forget—­now that all is right.”

Quentin smiled at her and his quick mind saw that the time had come to guide the conversation into pleasanter channels.  He moved close to Brent.

“It looks, Mr. Brent,” he said, quietly, “as though we all were at about the end of our troubles.  But there are two of us here who are not quite happy—­yet.  Mr. Brent, I am going to claim a reward.”

“Anything, my dear Locke, anything I have is yours.”

“Then I may as well tell you that Eva and I love each other and I want your consent to our marriage.”

Brent beamed.

“That, Quentin, is the dearest wish my heart can have.”