and have determined me to win when otherwise I should have
lost. Tell me honestly now, do you think I shall ever overcome life's
handicap?"

"Does it not depend what the handicap is?"

"My handicap is that I'm nameless," he replied. "I told you the story,
didn't I? At least, I tried to. Miss Bolitho, am I mad?"

"You are certainly talking very strangely."

"I hate your father," went on Paul, and his voice, although very quiet,
was very intense. "The first time I saw him I hated him. No, no one
is listening, you need not fear. I believed he was the tool of the
Wilsons. I believe it still! I don't think he fought me fairly
either. I think he dislikes me, too. But, but--shall I tell you
something?"

"I think you had better not," she replied. Even although she was
surrounded by a crowd of people, and their voices were wellnigh lost in
the hum of conversation, she was afraid.

"I do not think I can help myself. Miss Bolitho, I have been sustained
in all the work of my life by one thought--I want to win you for my
wife! Do you think it's possible?" And then, without waiting for her
reply, he went on: "It must be possible. It shall be possible! I will
make it so."

"I must ask you to excuse me. I have some friends over here wishing to
speak to me."

"Not yet," he said. "You must forgive my rudeness, but when a man
feels as I feel, and have felt for years, niceties of behaviour don't
count. You, in spite of everything, have become the one thing in life
worth living for, and yet I ought to be ashamed of speaking to you now.
I have no right!"

She looked at him wonderingly, as if not understanding what he meant.

"You see, I have no name," he said. "I don't know who my father is or
where he is. I only know that he and my mother were married in
Scotland, and he left her the day after the wedding. She, in her
trouble, went to her mother's old home in Cornwall, and was looked upon
as a poor outcast thing. She lay down on a bank near a little hamlet
called Stepaside, and thought she was going to die. From there she was
taken to a workhouse, where I was born. She would not tell her name,
and that was why I was called Stepaside. It's a terrible handicap,
isn't it? No father, no name! Ned Wilson made the most of that at the
election; but there, I've fought it down so far. Will you promise me
something? I hope you will, I think you will. I don't think I'm
altogether a clown, and I feel sometim