“It isn’t that, Uncle Phil.  I am perfectly satisfied—­happier here with you that I would be anywhere else in the world.  You have been wonderful to me.  I am not such an ungrateful idiot as not to understand and appreciate what a start it has given me to have you and your name and work behind me.  Only—­maybe I’ve been under your wing long enough.  Maybe I ought to stand on my feet.”

Doctor Holiday studied the troubled young face opposite him.  He was fairly certain that he wasn’t getting the whole or the chief reasons which were behind this sudden proposition.

“Do you wish to go at once?” he asked.  “Or will the first of the year be soon enough.”

Larry flushed and fell to fumbling with a paper knife that lay on the desk.

“I—­I meant to go right away,” he stammered.

“Why?”

Larry was silent.

“I judge the evidence isn’t all in,” remarked the older doctor a little drily.  “Am I going to hear the rest of it—­the real reason for your decision to go just now?”

Still silence on Larry’s part, the old obstinate set to his lips.

“Very well then.  Suppose I take my turn.  I think you haven’t quite all the evidence yourself.  Do you know Granny is dying?”

The paper knife fell with a click to the floor.

“Uncle Phil!  No, I didn’t know.  Of course I knew it was coming but you mean—­soon?”

“Yes, Larry, I mean soon.  How soon no one can tell, but I should say three months would be too long to allow.”

The boy brushed his hand across his eyes.  He loved Granny.  He had always seemed to understand her better than the others had and had been himself always the favorite.  Moreover he was bound to her by a peculiar tie, having once saved her life, conquering his boyish fear to do so.  It was hard to realize she was really going, that no one could save her now.

“I didn’t know,” he said again in a low voice.

“Ted will go back to college.  I shall let Tony go to New York to study as she wishes, just as you had your chance.  It isn’t exactly the time for you to desert us, my boy.”

“I won’t, Uncle Phil.  I’ll stay.”

“Thank you, son.  I felt sure you wouldn’t fail us.  You never have.  But I wish you felt as if you could tell me the other reason or reasons for going which you are keeping back.  If it is they are stronger than the one I have given you for staying it is only fair that I should have them.”

Larry’s eyes fell.  A slow flush swept his face, ran up to his very hair.

“My boy, is it Ruth?”

The gray eyes lifted, met the older man’s grave gaze unfalteringly.

“Yes, Uncle Phil, it is Ruth.  I thought you must have seen it before this.  It seemed as if I were giving myself away, everything I did or didn’t do.”

“I have thought of it occasionally, but dismissed the idea as too fantastic.  It hasn’t been so obvious as it seemed to you no doubt.  You have not made love to her?”