said; "I could not bear
you not to love me."

He hesitated a second, and then suddenly pressed his glowing face upon
her palm.

"But I don't love you as Uncle Tom loves you, Sheba," he said. "I love
you--young as I am--I love you--differently."

Her swaying nearer to him was a sweetly unconscious and involuntary
thing. Their young eyes drowned themselves in each other.

"I want you," she said, the note of a young ring-dove answering her mate
murmuring in her voice, "I want you to love me--as you love me. I love
your way of loving me."

"Darling!" broke from him, his boy's heart beating fast and high. And
their soft young lips were, through some mystery of power, drawn so near
to each other that they met like flowers moved to touching by the summer
wind.

Later Rupert went to Tom, who sat by an open window in his room and
looked out on the moonlit stretch of avenue. The boy's heart was still
beating fast, and, as the white light struck his face, it showed his eyes
more like Delia Vanuxem's than they had ever been. Their darkness held
just the look Tom remembered, but could never have described or explained
to himself.

"Uncle Tom," he began, in an unsteady voice, "I couldn't go to bed
without telling you."

Tom glanced up at him and learned a great deal. He put a big hand on his
shoulder.

"Sit down, boy," he said, his kind eyes warming. Rupert sat down.

"Perhaps I ought not to have done it," he broke forth. "I did not know I
was going to do it. I suppose I am too young. I did not mean to--but I
could not help it."

"Sheba?" Tom inquired, simply.

"Her eyes were so lovely," poured forth the boy. "She looked at me so
like an angel. Whenever she is near me, it seems as if something were
drawing us together."

"Yes," was Tom's quiet answer.

"I want to tell you all about it," impetuously. "I have been so lonely,
Uncle Tom, since my mother died. You don't know how I loved her--how
close we were to each other. She was so sweet and wonderful--and I had
nothing else."

Tom nodded gently.

"I remember," he said. "I never forgot."

He put the big hand on the boy's knee this time. "I loved her too," he
said, "and _I_ had nothing else."

"Then you know--you know!" cried Rupert. "You remember what it was to sit
quite near her and see her look at you in that innocent way--how you
longed to cry out and take her in your arms."

Tom stirred in his seat. Time rolled back twenty-five years.

"Oh, my God, yes-