"God, no!"
"I'd advise you to go home and talk it over with your father."
"To-morrow will be time enough. After the newspapers are out. I can't bear to think of the disgrace, Harbert has been interviewed, they say. He's told everything."
"Talk to your father to-night, my boy. There may be--may be warrants to-morrow."
The young man dropped his head on his arm and burst into tears. Old Droom puffed vigorously at his. pipe, his eyes shifting and uncomfortable. Twice he attempted to speak, and could not. In both instances he arose and poked the fire. At last the young man's choking sobs grew less violent. Droom cleared his throat with raucous emphasis, took his snaky gaze from a print on the wall representing "Dawn," and spoke: "You wouldn't think it to look at me now--or any other time, for that matter--but I loved a woman once. A long time ago. She never knew it. I didn't expect her to love me. How could I? Don't cry, Graydon. You're not like I was. The girl you love loves you. Cheer up. If I were you I'd go ahead and make her my wife. She's good enough, I'll swear."
"She says she can't marry me. Good Heaven, Elias. you don't know what a blow it was to her. It almost killed her. And my own father--oh, it was terrible!"
Elias Droom did not tell him--nor had he ever told anyone but himself--that the woman he loved was the boy's mother. He loved her before and after she married James Bansemer. He never had faltered in his love and reverence for her.
Graydon waited in his rooms until the old man returned with the morning papers. As Droom placed them on the table beside him, he grinned cheerfully.
"Big headlines, eh? But these are not a circumstance to what they will be. These articles deal only with the great mystery concerning the birth of one of the 'most beautiful and popular young women in Chicago.' Wait--wait until the Bansemer smash comes to reinforce the story! Fine reading, eh!"
"Don't, Elias, for Heaven's sake, don't!" cried the young man. "Have you no soft spot in your heart? God, I believe you enjoy all this. Look! Look what it says about her! The whole shameful story of that scene last night! There was a reporter there when it happened."
Together they read the papers. Their comments varied. The young man writhed and groaned under the revelations that were going to the public; the old clerk chuckled and philosophised.
Every one of these papers prophesied other and more sensational developments before the day was over. It promised to be war to the knife between David Cable, president of the Pacific, Lakes & Atlantic, and the man Bansemer. In each interview with Cable he was quoted as saying emphatically that the adoption of Jane had been made with his knowledge and consent. The supposed daughter was the only one to whom the startling revelations were a surprise. There also was mention of the fact that the young woman had immediately broken her engagement with James Bansemer's son. There were pictures of the leading characters in the drama.