Warden's wife died, leaving to his care two children. Faith, the elder, nine years of age at the time, was a pale, silent child. She knew enough of her father's character to suppress all her real self before him. Roy, the younger, aged three months when his mother left him, showed from his earliest moments a disposition differing widely from either father or mother. By-and-by that sweet soul would develop the love of the one parent without her weakness, the strength of the other without his hardness. Warden, in reality loving no one, having never in all his existence experienced either the joy or the pain of true love, yet believed that he had this feeling for his boy. He was undoubtedly very proud of the little child; he was his son, he was beautiful. Warden, when he looked at him, dreamed dreams, in which he saw himself the founder of a house and a name. He would make his boy a gentleman; he worked ever harder and harder as this thought grew and gathered strength within him. As to Faith, she was useful in helping and training Roy. For her own individual existence he had no special thought. She was but a girl; she would grow up another weak, good, loving creature like her mother. She might or might not marry. It did not greatly matter. Of course he would do his duty by her--for whenever had John Warden, in his own opinion, neglected that? She should be educated; she should have her chance in life. But he had no high opinion of women, and, though he thought he loved his son, he did not even pretend to his own heart that he cared for little Faith. It was to this man--this hard, hard man--who lived so uprightly in the eyes of his fellow men, but so far from his God, that the same God of love and pity and infinite compassion would yet reveal Himself. He must hear the voice of God; but, alas! for his hardness of heart, it must be in the whirlwind and the storm; not in the still small accents. CHAPTER TWO.