How could he ever endure them?

He was staring intently into the fire, clutching his pipe in his hand, and spilling from it the tobacco he had forgotten to smoke.

The lad would have a mother, too,—­a kind, good, beautiful mother to love him, to caress him, to do a million more things for him than his Uncle Billy had ever done or ever could do.  And the boy would love his mother, he would love her very tenderly; he ought to; it was right that he should; but in the beauty and sweetness of such a life as that would Ralph remember him?  How could he hope it?  Yet, how could he bear to be forgotten by the child?  How could he ever bear it?

In his intensity of thought the man had risen to his feet, grasping his clay pipe so closely that it broke and fell in fragments to the hearth.

He looked around again on the bare walls of his home, down on his own bent form, on his patched, soiled clothing and his clumsy shoes, then he sank back into his chair, covered his face with his hands, and gave way to tears.  He had lived in this world too long not to know that prosperity breeds forgetfulness, and he felt already in his heart a foretaste of the bitterness that should overwhelm him when this boy, whom he loved as his own child, should leave him alone, forgotten.

But after a time he looked up again.  Pleasanter thoughts were in his mind.  They were thoughts of the days and nights that he and the boy had spent together, from the time when he had found him, sick, helpless, and alone, on the dusty highway, in the heat of the midsummer sun, to these days that were now passing, with their strange revelations, their bright hopes, their shadowy fears.

But in all his thought there was no touch of disappointment, no trace of regret.  It was worth it all, he told himself,—­worth all the care he had given to the boy, all the money he had spent to restore him to health, worth all he had ever done or ever could do for him, just to have had the lad with him for a year, a month, a week:  why it was worth it all and more, yes, vastly more, just to have felt the small hand laid once on his arm, to have seen the loving eyes look up once into his, and to have heard the clear voice say, “Dear Uncle Billy” in the confiding way he knew so well.

It was nearly midnight when Bachelor Billy went to bed, and long after that hour before he fell asleep.

He awoke several times during the night with a sense of loneliness and desolation pressing down upon him, and he arose early to prepare for his day’s work.  It was arranged at the breakfast-table that Mrs. Maloney’s oldest girl should go down to Lawyer Sharpman’s office to inquire about Ralph, and Billy was to come home at noon, contrary to his custom, to hear her report.

Daylight is a great promoter of natural cheer, and the man went away to his work with a strong hope in his heart of Ralph’s speedy return; and when the long morning had passed and he hurried back to his home, he half expected that the boy would meet him on the way.  But he was disappointed; even Mrs. Maloney’s girl had no news for him.  She had been to Sharpman’s office twice, she said, and had not found him in, though the clerk had told her that Mr. Sharpman had returned from Wilkesbarre the day before.