--because I may not live to see it--"

Her breath gave out so that her faint tired voice trailed away.

"What?" he urged. "What is it, Anna? About tonight--"

What a tumult of weird excitement was within him! Surely this was
something momentous. His twenty-first birthday. Different, surely, for
Lee Anthony than any similar event had ever been for anyone else.

"He promised me--when you were twenty-one--just then--at this time, if
he could manage it--that he would come back--"

"Come back, Anna? Here?"

"Yes. To you and me. Because you would be a man--brought up, the best I
could do to make you be--like him--because you would be a man who would
know the value of love--and kindness--those things that ought to rule
this world--but really do not."

This wild, unreasoning excitement within him...! "You think he will
come--tonight, Anna?"

"I really do. I want to live to see him. But now--I don't know--"

He could only sit in silence, gripping her hand. And again the gay
voices of his guests downstairs came up like a roar of intrusion. They
didn't know that she was more than indisposed. She had made him promise
not to tell them.

Her eyes had closed, and now she opened them again. "They're having a
good time, aren't they, Lee? That's what I wanted--for you and them
both. You see, I've had to be careful--not to isolate you from
life--life as it is. Because your grandfather wanted you to be normal--a
healthy, happy--regular young man. Not queer--even though I've tried to
show you--"

"If he--he's coming tonight, Anna--we shouldn't have guests here."

"When they have had their fun--"

"They have. We're about finished down there. I'll get rid of them--tell
them you're not very well--"

She nodded. "Perhaps that's best--now--"

He was hardly aware of how he broke up the party and sent them away.
Then in the sudden heavy silence of the little cottage, here in the
grove of trees near the edge of the town, he went quietly back upstairs.

* * * * *

Her eyes were closed. Her white face was placid. Her faint breath was
barely discernible. Failing fast now. Quietly he sat beside her. There
was nothing that he could do. The doctor had said that very probably she
could not live through the night. Poor old Anna. His mind rehearsed the
life that she had given him. Always she had been so gentle, so wise,
ruling him with kindness.

He remembered some of the things she had reiterated so ofte