“I would cherish the assurance from your lips,” said the white-haired man, with a look piteous to behold, “that I have done well to reveal this history unto you. Canst you forgive, my brave son, the frail and blind agent of Destiny?” With a swiftness of answer that caused the eyes of the old man to brim with tears, the young man took him to his bosom. “This is indeed Achilles,” said the aged man, “this is indeed Achilles. And yet--and yet, although this is he whom I begot, it has not been given to me to write my page in the Book.” “And should you fail to write your page in the Book, my father,” said the young man, “is it not that our dynasty is at an end?” “It is written so,” said his father. The young man stood with bowed head and close lips. “I read your thought, valiant one,” said the old man, with a dull anguish in his eyes. “Perchance it is not my final thought,” said the young man. “I am not yet through the third phase.” XL As the days passed all too soon, the young man’s former sense of the need for action returned upon him. “The minutes melt,” he was saying constantly, “yet the strength has not yet been given to my right hand.” Once he cried to his father, almost in despair, “Soon my veins will open and the life within me will melt, and yet my labours are scarcely begun. I have already gathered rare and great knowledge for my authorship, yet alas! I cannot lift the pen.” “In this matter, I am barren of all counsel,” said his father, “for my right hand also, although nurtured in wisdom, has never received the strength to grasp the pen.” “The swift minutes speed headlong away,” cried the young man anxiously, “yet I tarry over-long upon my path.” Day by day the dire need of achieving his destiny burned in his veins. Yet the fleet hours sped, and his mighty task was no nearer to fulfilment. All day he would traverse the streets of the great city, and when the evening came he would labour in its slums. But at last as the spring of the year came again, and the sky grew more clement, and the trees and the earth began to shine with green, a new passion came upon this labourer even as he toiled. It happened that one evening, just as the fœtid little mission-room had been cleared for the night, the young man turned abruptly to his co-worker, that stalwart, the sight of whom had first drawn him there. “Farewell, my kind friend,” he said, “I pass from among you to-night.” “My dear Jordan,” said his fellow-worker, “you will be wise to refrain from working among us for a while. You are one who burns the candle too freely. You will do well to learn to husband your strength.” “In order,” said William Jordan, with his secret and beautiful smile, which many had learned to watch for, but none to understand, “that I may achieve that which lies before me?” “That is true,” said the chief of the mission. “You must know that you are a worker of miracles in this parish.”