a remarkable child, I thought, but I suppose it was my foolishness.  He analyzed all he saw, and when he used to go off in my car, Brennan, the engineer, would always beg to have him in the cab.  And such sympathy!  He knew in an instant when I was worried.  I had dreams of what that boy would become, but I was too sure of it.  I went on doing other things—­there were so many things, and I was a slave to them.  And before I knew it, he’d gone off to school.  That was the year I moved up here, and my wife died.  And after that, all seemed to go wrong.  Perhaps I was too severe; perhaps they didn’t understand him at boarding-school; perhaps I didn’t pay enough attention to him.  At any rate, the first thing I knew his whole nature seemed to have changed.  He got into scrape after scrape at Harvard, and later he came within an ace of marrying a woman.

“He’s my weakness to-day.  I can say no to everybody in the world but to him, and when I try to remember him as he used to come down those steps on Ransome Street . . . .

“He never knew how much I cared—­that what I was doing was all for him, building for him, that he might carry on my work.  I had dreams of developing this city, the great Southwest, and after I had gone Preston was to bring them to fruition.

“For some reason I never was able to tell him all this—­as I am telling you.  The words would not come.  We had grown apart.  And he seemed to think—­God knows why!—­he seemed to think I disliked him.  I had Langmaid talk to him, and other men I trusted—­tell him what an unparalleled opportunity he had to be of use in the world.  Once I thought I had him started straight and then a woman came along—­off the streets, or little better.  He insisted on marrying her and wrecking his life, and when I got her out of the way, as any father would have done, he left me.  He has never forgiven me.  Most of the time I haven’t even the satisfaction of knowing were he is—­London, Paris, or New York.  I try not to think of what he does.  I ought to cut him off,—­I can’t do it—­I can’t do it, Hodder—­he’s my one weakness still.  I’m afraid—­he’d sink out of sight entirely, and it’s the one hold I have left on him.”

Eldon Parr paused, with a groan that betokened not only a poignant sorrow, but also something of relief—­for the tortures of not being able to unburden himself had plainly become intolerable.  He glanced up and met the compassionate eyes of the rector, who stood leaning against the mantel.

“With Alison it was different,” he said.  “I never understood her—­even when she was a child—­and I used to look at her and wonder that she could be my daughter.  She was moody, intense, with a yearning for affection I’ve since sometimes thought—­she could not express.  I did not feel the need of affection in those days, so absorbed was I in building up, —­so absorbed and driven, you might say.  I suppose I must accept my punishment as just.  But the child was always distant with me, and I always remember