Balcom, the man who had given the iron man life, was dead. And yet the Automaton was among them!

That night, in the holds of many vessels and on the brake-beams of many trains pulling away from the city, emissaries who once were slaves of the Automaton were fleeing the city in every direction.

When Zita and her father arrived at Brent Rock, Locke was still working at his new gas-gun. Eva was in the library, but when she heard the voices in the hallway she ran to welcome them.

"Oh, I'm so glad you've both returned safe," she cried. Then, unable to withstand the suspense longer, she asked, "Have you brought it--the antidote?"

When Doctor Locke told her that the bottle that contained it was safely stowed in his pocket Eva sank, overwrought, into a chair and cried with simple relief and joy.

In a moment, however, she had gained control of herself, dashed the tears from her eyes, and almost seized the bottle from Doctor Locke.

"Bring him down here, my dear," cautioned the doctor, still holding the bottle. "You would not know how to administer it."

Eva ran to her father's room, stopping only long enough to summon Quentin, then together they led Brent down-stairs.

Brent's condition was still pitiable. His mind was a total blank. These people--Doctor Q, Zita, Quentin, even his own daughter--meant nothing to him. He lived and breathed. But no ray of light entered the poor brain.

They guided his halting steps into the library as if he had been something less than a child, and placed him in the same big armchair on which he had sunk the fatal morning that the fumes from the candles had overcome him.

Doctor Q drew out the bottle and, telling Zita to bring a glass of water, measured out a few drops of the antidote, pouring them into the glass. Then he moved over to Brent and tried to get him to drink it. For a long time Brent merely clenched his teeth, but, once he was induced to taste the mixture, he drank it eagerly.

For ages, it seemed to those watching, Brent sat as before, vacantly gazing straight ahead of him--so long, in fact, that a terrible fear entered Eva's heart that, perhaps, after all, the antidote would fail and that her father would remain without reason until the day of his death.

Then slowly a change was noticeable in his eyes, and all leaned forward with overpowering intentness. What they were watching was like a miracle. Slowly, very slowly, they saw the soul creep back into those poor, mad eyes.

Brent had been staring directly at his daughter as she watched him anxiously. Now a puzzled look came over his face and, raising a hand, he rubbed his forehead.

Then a wonderful light seemed to shine from his eyes and he held out his arms to Eva.

With a sob of excited happiness Eva rushed to embrace him.

As Locke stood behind him, Zita and Doctor Q walked to the other end of the room, turning sidewise to the group.

Suddenly Brent turned his eyes away from Eva and noticed Doctor Q for the first time.

"Who is that?" he asked Eva.

"Why, father, that is--"

At the sound of voices Doctor Q had turned around.

"You!" gasped Brent, as he sank back into his chair.

The look on his face was strange, perhaps half fear, half shame.

Doctor Q came no nearer for a moment, while Eva hastened to explain what had happened. Then unsteadily Brent rose and walked over to the doctor.

"You are alive!" he exclaimed. "You have come again into my life so that at last I can make restitution. My daughter has explained to me all that you have suffered. Believe me it was through my own weakness. It seems incredible that any man could be so infamous, so utterly without moral scruples, as was Balcom. I believed the villain implicitly. That is, and can be, my only excuse."

The doctor placed his hand on Brent's shoulder.

"I can understand only too well," he remarked, "for I, too, believed in Balcom. You were a reticent man and so my dealings were all with him. I was gullible, an inventor, not a business man. I should have come to you before I fled the country, I suppose. Say no more about it, for I forgive you from the bottom of my heart."

But Brent insisted on explaining that at least he had had a desire to right the great wrongs.

"I can remember it all now," he continued. "I was about to make restitution when a man connected with the company--I am sure now that he was an adventurer, a crook, in the pay of Balcom, although Balcom probably tried to hide it--came to me. His name, as I remember it, was Flint. I was about to write a letter that showed that it was my intention to right a wrong, when--something interrupted me and--the rest I can't remember."

Quentin, who had been standing behind the chair, now drew from his pocket a piece of paper which he handed to Brent.

"Yes--that is it," cried Brent, excitedly, taking it, and spreading it out before them. "See!"

It was a note addressed to Quentin Locke and read:

I have done you a great wrong about which you know nothing, but for which I will make amends--

"It was broken off," exclaimed Brent, making a sad effort to recollect what had happened. "I don't remember how. But this Flint had been telling me something about an iron monster. He had a model--said he had seen the real thing in Madagascar, that it had a human brain, that it walked and fought, that it had strength and life--but no conscience. He hinted that the thing would do me harm if I persisted in a course that I had determined for myself of giving back to inventors we had robbed the things of which we had robbed them. I did not believe him. I thought the thing absurd, and started to write the note, going a step farther than I had ever threatened Balcom."

Quentin, Doctor Q, and Zita exchanged glances as Eva's father resumed his narrative.

"Then I felt a choking sensation at my throat. I remember the effrontery of Flint's laughing at me, in a maudlin sort of way, and then--a blank.

The next I recall was just now--Eva gazing at me with a worried expression in her dear eyes. I called to her and kissed her, tried to comfort her. Then I saw you, Locke, and Zita."

Peter Brent, from the time he and Flint had been overcome by the fumes from the candelabra until he received the antidote and recognized his daughter, had not known a thing!

As they talked there were many matters the two aged men discovered while they pieced together the happenings of years.

Each had been duped by the same man. Each had suffered great trouble through this man's machinations and duplicity.

As they talked, the attention of both turned to the younger Quentin Locke, who seemed overjoyed at the recovery of his former employer.

Brent had a very great feeling of affection and respect for the younger man, for had he not really brought him up?

As all questioned one another, they asked Brent much about the past, and he told them all.

He told how he had become finally suspicious of Balcom, of how he insisted upon instituting a search for the doctor, his wife, and children. He told how Balcom had opposed him up to the last moment. Then he described his sailing half the world over in search of them, how at times he found a trail, only to lose it again.

Finally he told how at last he had found that the mother had been lost, but the children saved.

"I was in Bombay," he continued, "in despair that I would ever find any of you. At that time I was an old man before my time, for my conscience gave me no rest. I went down to the quay to purchase a ticket for my return to New York, and, true to the habit I had formed, I asked the ticket-seller if he had ever heard anything of the survivors of the steamer _Magnifique_.

"'Do I know anything of it?' repeated the ticket-seller. 'No, but there's a man working on this dock now who never talks of anything else.

He was a sailor on the ship and one of the few who survived.'

"You can believe me when I tell you that I ran down that dock and found the man. He remembered you all well, remembered you children when you were taken up with some other survivors, and he said he thought that some family had taken you to Hong-Kong.

"I canceled my passage to Liverpool and immediately sailed for China.

Still, my troubles were not over, for it was weeks before I finally located you babies, Quentin and Zita.

"I won't burden you with the difficulties I encountered before the English family, the Danes, with whom I found you, would consent to give you up. Nor will I take time to tell of our return to New York through San Francisco.