“Why, we dismissed him from Quentin for—”
“Father, don’t!” ejaculated Jean suddenly. Her cheeks burned, while her eyes pleaded with her father to spare Loring’s past. Radlett looked at her with a quick glance of appreciation.
“It is all right, Jean,” he said. “Loring told me all about it himself.”
“He told you,” queried Mr. Cameron incredulously, “about the accident, about his drunkenness and all; and after that you put him in charge of the mine? How could you?”
“I believed in him,” replied Radlett quietly, “and he has justified my belief. I have known him all my life, and I trust and respect him.”
“You say that he has made good with you?” inquired Mr. Cameron sharply.
“He has.”
Mr. Cameron was a man of honest enthusiasms, but of equally honest hatreds. When man had once failed him, he was loath to believe that there could be good in him.
“I hope you will find that he keeps it up,” was all that he said. He did not say it with complimentary conviction, either.