“You knew,” said Draper, in a tone of quiet affirmation.

Millner righted himself, and grasped the arms of his chair as if that too were reeling.  “About this blackguardly charge?”

Draper was studying him intently.  “What does it matter if it’s blackguardly?”

“Matter—?” Millner stammered.

“It’s that, of course, in any case.  But the point is whether it’s true or not.”  Draper bent down, and picking up the crumpled letter, smoothed it out between his fingers.  “The point, is, whether my father, when he was publicly denouncing the peonage abuses on the San Pablo plantations over a year ago, had actually sold out his stock, as he announced at the time; or whether, as they say here—­how do they put it?—­he had simply transferred it to a dummy till the scandal should blow over, and has meanwhile gone on drawing his forty per cent interest on five thousand shares?  There’s the point.”

Millner had never before heard his young friend put a case with such unadorned precision.  His language was like that of Mr. Spence making a statement to a committee meeting; and the resemblance to his father flashed out with ironic incongruity.

“You see why I’ve brought this letter to you—­I couldn’t go to him with it!” Draper’s voice faltered, and the resemblance vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.

“No; you couldn’t go to him with it,” said Millner slowly.

“And since they say here that you know:  that they’ve got your letter proving it—­” The muscles of Draper’s face quivered as if a blinding light had been swept over it.  “For God’s sake, Millner—­it’s all right?”

“It’s all right,” said Millner, rising to his feet.

Draper caught him by the wrist.  “You’re sure—­you’re absolutely sure?”

“Sure.  They know they’ve got nothing to go on.”

Draper fell back a step and looked almost sternly at his friend.  “You know that’s not what I mean.  I don’t care a straw what they think they’ve got to go on.  I want to know if my father’s all right.  If he is, they can say what they please.”

Millner, again, felt himself under the concentrated scrutiny of the ceiling.  “Of course, of course.  I understand.”

“You understand?  Then why don’t you answer?”

Millner looked compassionately at the boy’s struggling face.  Decidedly, the battle was to the strong, and he was not sorry to be on the side of the legions.  But Draper’s pain was as awkward as a material obstacle, as something that one stumbled over in a race.

“You know what I’m driving at, Millner.”  Again Mr. Spence’s committee-meeting tone sounded oddly through his son’s strained voice.  “If my father’s so awfully upset about my giving up my Bible Class, and letting it be known that I do so on conscientious grounds, is it because he’s afraid it may be considered a criticism on something he has done which—­which won’t bear the test of the doctrines he believes in?”