It all
pleased her so much! And she talked much and tenderly about you
afterwards. But there was something that disturbed her, and I must
tell you about it, for she will want to know if I explained it to
you."

She stopped a moment and threw an observant glance upon her listener.
Absorbed in what she was saying, he was looking at her with his keen
eyes and serious face all soft and tender with emotion.

Penelope felt her heart yearn toward him with entire trust. "Felix has
never cared for us as much as this man does already," she thought.

"Mother was afraid," she continued, "that you might think, from what
she said about her hopes when Felix was a little boy, that she is
dissatisfied with him now. Of course, you know that isn't true. I've
told you enough for you to see how she delights and glories in him.
She would have liked, I think, to see him become a great preacher or a
great reformer. But his bent wasn't that way, and I don't believe that
if he had been either she could have been prouder of him than she is
now."

"Well, I can never be a great preacher, or a great reformer either,
or, indeed, a great anything. But I hope I shall be able to do some
good in the world, in little spots here and there, and I want very
much to bring more happiness into her life and yours. I would like to
be to her a son. But--I don't know----"

He hesitated again and Penelope saw doubt come into his face and his
eyes grow wistful.

"No, I don't know how it will be. I can do it--" Again he stopped for
a moment and, gazing into the distance as he went on, he seemed to
Penelope to be speaking more to himself than to her. "I can do it only
by giving to you and to her, to her especially, very great sorrow
first. Sometimes, I'm not quite sure----"

Then sudden resolution seemed to seize him. His lips shut and his
figure stiffened with determination. "But it has to be--it has to be,"
he declared abruptly. His air was forceful to the verge of
aggressiveness as he turned to her again.

"Good-bye, Penelope. Give my love to your mother and tell her I was
sorry not to see her. It has been good to see you once more and to
have this talk with you. I shall come again some time if you will let
me. But I shall not believe you unwilling to see me unless you
yourself tell me so."

"You are a strange man," she replied, looking at him with frank
curiosity but entire friendliness, "and you interest me very much.
Whenever you wish to come again y