Summary
Alden Van Dusen—scion of a lineage whose marble nameplates have glimmered along Wall Street since the Grant administration—stands on the night-drenched granite of a Hudson wharf, pockets weighted with family shame instead of the customary Morgan silver. Bankruptcy or bilk: the ledger offers only two crimson columns. He chooses the tidal third: submersion, erasure, a drowned epitaph for the House of Van Dusen. Yet the river spits him back; a waterfront bravo lunges, knife flashing like a Bowery marquee, and in the churn of fists and brine the assailant expires. Alden—pulse hammering louder than El trains—kneels, peels the corpse’s sodden clothes, and slips into a new skin as though destiny itself were a thrift-shop overcoat. Months later, soot-bronzed and nameless, he swings a pick in an Arizona copper fissure half-owned by the very trust he once commanded. Each swing is penance; each ore-cart that rattles toward the smelter carries a sin purged in fire. When ledgers flip from crimson to black, the prodigal hears rumor that Helen—his moonlit bride, widowed by rumor—faces eviction from both hearth and hope. A telegram never sent becomes a prayer; he rides freights eastward, face sun-cured, soul furnace-forged, ready to reclaim not just wealth but the right to breathe the same air as his sleeping child.
Synopsis
When Alden Van Dusen, a third-generation member of a prestigious old New York family, is faced with the alternatives of allowing his firm to go bankrupt or becoming involved in fraud, he decides on suicide. As he is about to drown himself, Alden is attacked by a thug and, in the ensuing struggle, his assailant is killed. Seizing upon the opportunity, Alden changes identities with the dead man and drifts West, where he becomes an employee in his firm's mine. Working tirelessly to make the mine a success, Alden saves the business and redeems himself. When he discovers that his wife Helen is not receiving her share of the profits and is being driven to remarry to provide support for his child, Alden returns East, where he is reunited with his family and upholds the honor of the third generation.
