"It was a risk. It was a great risk. It was _the_ risk," the little man went on, in a low, meditative tone. "But I trusted--_him_. It seemed to me that he could not fail. He comes of a good stock. The long line of men and women who lived, so that he might live, did not live in vain. Think of their restraint, their self-repression, their self-sacrifice-- "And we have been able to do him a service, a great service, a greater service than he realizes as yet. We have helped him through a difficult, and dangerous, period in his life. And you have shown him--of what stuff he is made. Instincts, and impulses, which, in him, have necessarily been insulated, and sternly suppressed, for years, have been brought into play. He knows now--of what stuff he is made. "The future will be easier. I was telling him, tonight, that I do not think that we shall see so much of him, in the future. The time is coming when we shall see very little of him, I think. But he will not forget us. He will think of us with gratitude, with deepening gratitude, as the years go by. We shall have a place of our own in his memory. And there will be nothing in his memory, that he, or we, need regret-- "We shall miss him. He has come to fill a large place in all our lives. It has been a strange episode. That he should have wandered, by chance, into our quiet backwater; that we should have become implicated, through him, in great issues--that is strange. But it is only an episode. And it is nearly over now. And we--and you--would not have it otherwise?" "I would not have it otherwise," Judith whispered. Then she drew in her breath, sharply, as if in pain. "But I have so much, and he has so little," she said. "He has--England," Uncle Bond said gravely. "And I have the Imps, and you," Judith replied. Then she stooped down, suddenly, and kissed the little man. "Good night," she said. "I am going straight to bed. I am very tired." And she turned, and hurried out of the room-- For some time, Uncle Bond remained motionless at the writing table. The night was very still. An owl called, eerily, from the garden. A dog barked in some distant farmyard. At last, the little man rose to his feet, crossed to the sofa again, and stood looking down at the King's face which showed pallid, drawn, and, somehow, it seemed to him now, old, in the dim, half light. "The band, I think, _must be_ playing--somewhere--" he muttered. CHAPTER XVI It was a night of strange dreams with the King.