“Father Paul,” went on the Boy, his thoughts taking a new turn, “you are a bachelor—­a hopeless old bachelor—­and you have never told me why.  Of course there’s a woman or two in it!  We have talked about everything else under the sun, I think—­you and I—­but, curiously enough, we have never talked of love!  Yet I feel sure that you believe in it.  Don’t you, Father Paul?  Come now, confess!  I am in a mood for sentiment to-day, and I want to hear what drove you to a life of single blessedness—­what made my romantic old pal such a confirmed old celibate!  I don’t believe that you object to matrimony on general principles.  Tell me your love-story, please, Father Paul.”

“What makes you so certain that I have had one, Boy?”

“Oh, I don’t know just why, but I am certain!  It’s there in your lips when you smile, in your eyes when you are moved, in your voice when you allow yourself to become reminiscent.  You are full of memories that you have never spoken of to me.  And now, Father Paul—­now is the accepted time!”

For a moment Verdayne was nonplussed.  What could he reply?  There was only one love-story in his life, and that one would end only with his own existence, but he could not tell that story to the Boy—­yet!  Suddenly, however, an old, half-forgotten memory flashed across his mind.  Of course he had a love-story.  He would tell the Boy the story of Isabella Waring.

So, as they sat together over their coffee and cigarettes, Verdayne told his young guest about the Curate’s daughter, who had all unconsciously wielded such an influence over the events of his past life.  He told of the girl’s kindness to him when he had broken his collarbone; of her assistance so freely offered to his mother; of her jolly, lively spirits, her amiable disposition and general gay good-fellowship; and then of the unlucky kiss that had aroused the suspicion and august displeasure of Lady Henrietta, and had sent her erring son a wanderer over the face of Europe—­to forget!

He painted his sadness at leaving home—­and Isabella—­in pathetic colors.  Indeed, he became quite affecting when he pictured his parting with Isabella, and when in repeating his parting words, he managed to get just the right suspicion of a tremble into his voice, he really felt quite proud of his ability as a story-teller.

The Boy was plainly touched.

“What foolishness to think that such a love as yours could be cured merely by sending you abroad!” he said.

“Just what I thought, Boy—­utter folly!”

“Of course it didn’t cure you, Father Paul.  You didn’t learn to forget, did you?  Oh, it was cruel to send you away when you loved her like that!  I didn’t think it of Aunt Henrietta—­I didn’t indeed!”

“Oh, you mustn’t blame mother, Boy.  She meant it for the best, just as your Uncle Peter now means it for the best for you and yours.  She thought I would forget.”

“Was she very, very beautiful, Father Paul?  But of course she was, if you loved her!”