The father's long trembling finger traced slowly each word:
"'Remember that I love you and have forgiven——'"
"Forgiven what?" Tom interrupted.
Norton turned deadly pale, recovered himself and began in a low voice:
"You see, boy, I grew up under the old régime. Like a lot of other fellows with whom I ran, I drank, gambled and played the devil—you know what that meant in those days——"
"No, I don't," the boy interrupted. "That's just what I don't know. I belong to a new generation. And you've made a sort of exception of me even among the men of to-day. You taught me to keep away from women. I learned the lesson. I formed clean habits, and so I don't know just what you mean by that. Tell me plainly."
"It's hard to say it to you, my boy!" the older man faltered.
"I want to know it."
"I—I mean that twenty years ago it was more common than now for youngsters to get mixed up with girls of negroid blood——"
The boy shrank back: