listen; if this great hope can come to me, why not to you?"

Mantel leaned his head on his hand a moment, and then answered with a
sigh, "Perhaps--but," and paused.

There are moments when these two indefinite words contain the whole of
our philosophy of existence. "I am going to seek the great Perhaps!"
said Rabelais, as he breathed his last.

David looked at him sympathetically and said, "Well, it is not strange
that you cannot feel as I do. It is not by what befalls others, but by
what befalls ourselves, that we learn to hope and trust."

The silence that came between them was broken by Mantel, who looked up
at him with a trace of the old ironical smile on his face.

"Your plans are all right as far as they go, but it seems to me the
hardest part of the tangle still remains to be unraveled."

"What do you mean?" asked David.

"What are you going to do about this beautiful Pepeeta?"

"Oh, I have settled that, too! You do not know how clearly I see it all.
It is as if a fog had lifted from the ocean, and the sailor had found
himself inside the harbor. I shall write and tell her all."

"Do you mean that you will tell her that her husband is alive?"

"I do."