“If they mean to close my companies and bring charges against me, I’ll tell you now, Mallett, any official of any bank which to-day is in operation, can be indicted!”

He sat breathing fast, hands clasped nervously between his knees.  Duane, painfully impressed, waited.  And after a moment Dysart spoke again: 

“They mean my ruin.  There is a bank examiner at work—­this very moment while we’re sitting here—­on the Collect Pond Bank—­which is mine.  The Federal inquisitors went through it once; now a new one is back again.  They found nothing with which to file an adverse report the first time.  Why did they come back?

“And I’ll tell you another thing, Mallett, which may seem a slight reason for my sullenness and quick temper; they’ve had secret-service men following me ever since I returned from Roya-Neh.  They are into everything that I’ve ever been connected with; there is no institution, no security in which I am interested, that they have not investigated.

“And I tell you also, incredible as it may sound, that there is no security in which I am interested which is not now being attacked by government officials, and which, as a result of such attacks, is not depreciating daily.  I tell you they’ve even approached the United States Court for its consent to a ruinous disposal of certain corporation notes in which I am interested!  Will you tell me what you think of that, Mallett?”

Duane said:  “I don’t know, Dysart.  I know almost nothing about such matters.  And—­I am sorry that you are in trouble.”

The silence remained unbroken for some time; then Dysart stood up: 

“I don’t offer you my hand.  You took it once for my father’s sake.  That was manly of you, Mallett....  I thought perhaps I might lighten your anxiety about your father.  I hope I have....  And I must ask your pardon for pressing my private affairs upon you”—­he laughed mirthlessly—­“merely because I’d rather you didn’t think me a crook—­for my father’s sake....  Good-night.”

“Dysart,” he said, “why in God’s name have you behaved as you have to—­that girl?”

Dysart stood perfectly motionless, then in a voice under fair control: 

“I understand you.  You don’t intend that as impertinence; you’re a square man, Mallett—­a man who suffers under the evil in others.  And your question to me meant that you thought me not entirely hopeless; that there was enough of decency in me to arouse your interest.  Isn’t that what you meant?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Well, then, I’ll answer you.  There isn’t much left of me; there’ll be less left of my fortune before long.  I’ve made a failure of everything, fortune, friendship, position, happiness.  My wife and I are separated; it is club gossip, I believe.  She will probably sue for divorce and get it.  And I ask you, because I don’t know, can any amends be made to—­the person you mentioned—­by my offering her the sort and condition of man I now am?”