Later Rupert went to Tom, who sat by an open window in his room and looked out on the moonlit stretch of avenue. The boy's heart was still beating fast, and, as the white light struck his face, it showed his eyes more like Delia Vanuxem's than they had ever been. Their darkness held just the look Tom remembered, but could never have described or explained to himself. "Uncle Tom," he began, in an unsteady voice, "I couldn't go to bed without telling you." Tom glanced up at him and learned a great deal. He put a big hand on his shoulder. "Sit down, boy," he said, his kind eyes warming. Rupert sat down. "Perhaps I ought not to have done it," he broke forth. "I did not know I was going to do it. I suppose I am too young. I did not mean to--but I could not help it." "Sheba?" Tom inquired, simply. "Her eyes were so lovely," poured forth the boy. "She looked at me so like an angel. Whenever she is near me, it seems as if something were drawing us together." "Yes," was Tom's quiet answer. "I want to tell you all about it," impetuously. "I have been so lonely, Uncle Tom, since my mother died. You don't know how I loved her--how close we were to each other. She was so sweet and wonderful--and I had nothing else." Tom nodded gently. "I remember," he said. "I never forgot." He put the big hand on the boy's knee this time. "I loved her too," he said, "and _I_ had nothing else." "Then you know--you know!" cried Rupert. "You remember what it was to sit quite near her and see her look at you in that innocent way--how you longed to cry out and take her in your arms." Tom stirred in his seat. Time rolled back twenty-five years. "Oh, my God, yes--I remember!" he answered. "It was like that to-night," the young lover went on. "And I could not stop myself. I told her I loved her--and she said she wanted me to love her--and we kissed each other." Big Tom got up and stood before the open window. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets and he stared out at the beauty of the night. "Good Lord!" he said. "That's what _ought_ to come to every man that lives--but it doesn't." Rupert poured forth his confession, restrained no more. "From that first night when I rode through the mountains over the white road and stopped at your gate--since I looked up and saw her standing on the balcony with the narcissus in her hair it has always been the same thing. It began that very moment--it was there when she leaned forward and spoke to me. I had never thought of a woman before--I was too poor and sad and lonely and young. And there she was--all white--and it seemed as if she was _mine_." Tom nodded his head as if to a white rose-bush in the small garden. "I am as poor as ever I was," said Rupert. "I am a beggar if we lose our claim; but I am not sad, and I am not lonely--I can't be--I can't be! I am happy--everything's happy--because she knows--and I have kissed her." "What did you think I would say when you told me?" Tom asked.