"Please let me tell you. He had--some scientific apparatus. I didn't see it--I don't know where he went. I think he didn't know either, where he was going. But he was a very good man, Lee. I think he had an intuition--an inspiration. Yes, it must have been that. A man--inspired. And so he went. I've never seen or heard from him since. Yet--what he promised me--if he could accomplish it--tonight--almost now, Lee, would be the time--" * * * * * Just a desperately sick old woman whose blurred mind was seeing visions. The thin wrinkled face, like crumpled white parchment, was transfigured as though by a vision. Her sunken eyes were bright with it. A wonderment stirred within Lee Anthony. Why was his heart pounding? It seemed suddenly as though he must be sharing this unknown thing of science--and mysticism. As though something within him--his grandfather's blood perhaps--was responding.... He felt suddenly wildly excited. "Tonight?" he murmured. "Your grandfather was a very good man, Lee--" "And you, Anna--all my life I have known how good you are. Not like most women--you're just all gentleness--just kindness--" "That was maybe--just an inspiration from him." Her face was bright with it. "I've tried to bring you up--the way he told me. And what I must tell you now--about tonight, I mean--because I may not live to see it--" Her breath gave out so that her faint tired voice trailed away. "What?" he urged. "What is it, Anna? About tonight--" What a tumult of weird excitement was within him! Surely this was something momentous. His twenty-first birthday. Different, surely, for Lee Anthony than any similar event had ever been for anyone else. "He promised me--when you were twenty-one--just then--at this time, if he could manage it--that he would come back--" "Come back, Anna? Here?" "Yes. To you and me. Because you would be a man--brought up, the best I could do to make you be--like him--because you would be a man who would know the value of love--and kindness--those things that ought to rule this world--but really do not." This wild, unreasoning excitement within him...! "You think he will come--tonight, Anna?" "I really do. I want to live to see him. But now--I don't know--" He could only sit in silence, gripping her hand. And again the gay voices of his guests downstairs came up like a roar of intrusion. They didn't know that she was more than indisposed. She had made him promise not to tell them. Her eyes had closed, and now she opened them again. "They're having a good time, aren't they, Lee? That's what I wanted--for you and them both. You see, I've had to be careful--not to isolate you from life--life as it is. Because your grandfather wanted you to be normal--a healthy, happy--regular young man. Not queer--even though I've tried to show you--" "If he--he's coming tonight, Anna--we shouldn't have guests here." "When they have had their fun--"