She seemed not to hear my question, for she was walking very fast, with her eyes set straight ahead of her. "He might pass me at this minute, David, and I should not know him. That might be he, standing by that window, and I should be none the wiser, yet the fault is his. I try always to think of him as I should, but at times it seems as though he had disowned me, abandoned me on his brother's doorstep and then run away. You ask of the letter. It came to me soon after I left the farm. He said that it was best that my uncle should have me, better than to condemn me to shift about the world with him; he said that he had been a lazy, worthless creature, but he was going to do something, to be somebody--those were his words; and some day, when I could be proud of him, he would come back and claim me, and, David, he has never come. Will he ever come, do you think?" "I think he will," I answered. "For I have seen him." "You have seen him!" The hand was on my arm again, and, forgetful of the hurrying crowd around us, we stood there face to face, while I told her of the brief glimpse I had had of him four years before. She listened, breathless, and, when I had finished, walked on in silence. We were crossing the Plaza when she spoke again, half to me, half ruminating. "Poor father! He must have tried and failed. He was going to Tibet, David, you told me; that was four years ago. Where can he be now? Wandering around the world alone, in want, perhaps, and I have everything. Do you suppose he believes that I have forgotten him--as if I could forget those evenings when we sat together and painted pictures of the times when we should be rich! He called me the princess and planned great houses in which we should live, and he would talk of our travels and the wonderful places we should see together. Even then I had faith that our dreams would come true, though it did seem that we were getting poorer and poorer all the time, and father doing nothing to help our plight. The dreams came true, David--for me. Why doesn't he come and share them with me, with me and Uncle Rufus? That is what troubles me; that is what I can never understand." I said to myself that Rufus Blight, were he so minded, could clear the mystery away. I thought of him as a selfish, arrogant man, who was, perhaps, too well satisfied not to have an undesirable third person in his household to undertake any sincere search for his brother. But these thoughts I concealed. There was something behind it all that we two could not understand, I said, and Penelope looked up to me with clouded eyes. "But we will find him, Penelope!" My stick hit the pavement as I registered a vow. "We will find him--you and I."