ter, certainly break, and that night it had burst forth with all
the fury of the tempest which has been a long time gathering.

He hardly knew what had brought it on, or how it had begun. Its violence
was so great as to almost stun him until at length, without being more
than half conscious of the significance of his own words he had asked if
it would not be better for him to go away and earn his own living; and
then came his foster-father's startlingly ready consent, with the
warning that if he did go he must look for no further aid from him.

His heart ached for the pretty, tender little mother. How soft the arms
that had clung about his neck, the lips that had pressed his hot brow!
How piteous her dear tears! They had almost robbed him of his
resolution, but he had succeeded in steeling himself against this
weakness. He had folded her close in his arms and kissed her, and vowed
that, come what might, he could never forget her or cease to love her,
and that he should always think of her as his mother and himself as her
child. Then he had put her gently from him for, for all his vows, she
was inseparably bound up in the old life from which he was breaking
away--his life as John Allan's adopted son--she could have no real place
in his future.

Yet the tie that bound him to her was the strongest in his life and
could not be severed without keen pain. In the world into which he was
going to fight the battle of life (he told himself) memory of her would
be one of his inspirations.

But where was that battle to be fought, and with what weapons? He had
been brought up as a rich man's son, and with the expectation of being a
rich man's heir. He had been trained to no money-making work, physical
or mental; and now he was to fare forth into the great world where there
was not a familiar face, even, to earn his bread! What could he do that
would bring him the price of a loaf?--

Did the question appal him? Not in the least. He had youth, he had
health, he had hope, he had his beloved talent and the secret training
he had given himself toward its cultivation. His "heart-strings were a
lute"--he felt it, and with an optimism rare for him he also felt that
he had but to strike upon that lute and the world must needs stop and
listen.

What he did not have was experience and knowledge of the world. Little
did he dream how small a part of the busy hive would turn aside to hear
his music or how little poetry had to do with the ea