"Because she taught me, Paul--because she taught me! I slept the sleep
of the blind and deaf and soulless until her touch woke my soul into
being. You have always been alive to the joy of the world and the beauty
of living. Your soul was born with your body and lived purposefully from
the very beginning of things. You were born for a purpose and that
purpose showed itself even in infancy."

A silence fell between the two men. A long time they sat in that
sympathetic communion, each busy with his own thoughts. The older Paul
was lost in memories of the past, for his life lay all behind him--the
younger Paul was indulging in many dreams of a roseate future, for his
life was all ahead of him.

It was a friendship that the world often wondered about--this strange
intimacy between Paul Verdayne, the famous Member of Parliament, and the
young man from abroad who called himself Paul Zalenska. None knew
exactly where Monsieur Zalenska came from, and as they had long ago
learned the futility of questioning either of the men about personal
affairs, had at last reconciled themselves to never finding out.
Everyone suspected that the Boy was a scion of rank--and some went so
far as to say of royalty, but beyond the fact that every May he came
with his faithful, foreign-looking attendant to Verdayne Place and spent
the summer months with the Verdayne family, nothing definite was
actually known. His elderly attendant certainly spoke some beastly
foreign jargon and went by the equally beastly foreign name of Vasili.
He was known to worship his young master and to attend him with the most
marked servility, but he was never questioned, and had he been, would
certainly have told no tales.

The parents of Paul Verdayne--Sir Charles and Lady Henrietta--were very