dear to me as you. Men don't usually talk about these things to one
another, you know, Boy; but, though I am a bachelor, you see, I feel
toward you as most men feel toward their sons. What does the mere
defining of the relationship matter? Could we possibly be any more to
each other than we are?"

Paul Verdayne seated himself on a little knoll beneath the shade of a
giant oak. The Boy looked at him with the wistfulness of an infinite
question in his gaze.

"No, no, Boy! Some time, perhaps--yes, certainly--you shall know all,
all! But that time has not yet come, and for the present it is best that
things should rest as they are. Trust us, Boy--trust me--and be
patient!"

"Patient!" The Boy laughed a full, ringing laugh, as he threw himself on
the grass at his companion's feet. "I have never learned the word! Could
you be patient, Uncle Paul, when youth was all on fire in your heart,
with your own life shrouded in mystery? Could you, I say, be patient
then?"

Verdayne laughed indulgently as his strong fingers stroked the Boy's
brown curls.

"Perhaps not, Boy, perhaps not! But it is for you," he continued, "for
you, Boy, to make the best of that life of yours, which you are pleased
to think clouded in such tantalizing mystery. It is for you to develop
every God-given faculty of your being that all of us that love you may
have the happiness of seeing you perform wisely and well the mission
upon which you have been sent to this kingdom of yours to accomplish.