(he looked deliberately at Hodder) "have not prevented me, do not prevent
me to-day from regarding my fortune as a trust. You have deprived St.
John's, at least so long as you remain there, of some of its benefits,
and the responsibility for that is on your own head. And I am now making
arrangements to give to Calvary the settlement house which St. John's
should have had."

The words were spoken with such an air of conviction, of unconscious
plausibility, as it were, that it was impossible for Hodder to doubt the
genuineness of the attitude they expressed. And yet it was more than his
mind could grasp . . . . Horace Bentley, Richard Garvin, and the
miserable woman of the streets whom he had driven to destroy herself had
made absolutely no impression whatever! The gifts, the benefactions of
Eldon Parr to his fellow-men would go on as before!

"You ask me why I sent for you," the banker went on. "It was primarily
because I hoped to impress upon you the folly of marrying my daughter.
And in spite of all the injury and injustice you have done me, I do not
forget that you were once in a relationship to me which has been unique
in my life. I trusted you, I admired you, for your ability, for your
faculty of getting on with men. At that time you were wise enough not
to attempt to pass comment upon accidents in business affairs which are,
if deplorable, inevitable."

Eldon Parr's voice gave a momentary sign of breaking.

"I will be frank with you. My son's death has led me, perhaps weakly,
to make one more appeal. You have ruined your career by these
chimerical, socialistic notions you have taken up, and which you mistake
for Christianity. As a practical man I can tell you, positively, that