Graydon sat with his chin in his hands, dull, stricken, crushed.
He had heard the story of his father's baseness from Frances Cable,
and he had been told the true story of Jane; from Rigby he learned
of the vile transactions in which his father had dealt. At first,
he could scarcely believe his own ears, but in the end lie saw that
but--half the truth could be told.

It was past midnight when he left David Cable's, not to go to his
own home, but to that of Elias Droom. He knew now that the newspapers
would devote columns to the "sensation in high life"; he knew that
Jane would suffer agonies untold, but he would not blame his father
for that; he knew that arrest and disgrace hung over the tall grey
man who had shown his true and amazing side at last; he knew that
shame and humiliation were to be his own share in the division.
Down somewhere in his aching heart he nourished the hope that Elias
Droom could ease the pain of these wretched disclosures.

As he traversed the dark streets across town he was vaguely wondering
whether Jane's eyes would ever lose the pained, hopeless expression
he had last seen in them. He wondered whether she would retract her
avowal that she could not be his wife with the shame upon her; he
rejoiced in her tearless, lifeless promise to hold him in no fault
for what had happened.

Distressed and miserable, he spent the remainder of the night in
Elias Droom's squalid rooms, sitting before the little stove which
his host replenished from time to time during the weary hours.

Droom answered his questions with a direct tenderness that surprised