Maurice had full opportunity for the exercise of patience during the last weeks of his grandfather's life.

It was hard to sit there day after day watching the half-conscious old man, who lay so still and seemed so shut out from human feelings or sympathies, and to feel all the while that any one of those hours of vigil might be the one that stole from him his heart's desire.

Yet there was no alternative.

His grandfather, who had received and adopted him, was suffering and solitary, dependent wholly on him for what small gratification he could still enjoy.
Gratitude, therefore, and duty kept him here.

But _there_, meanwhile, so far out of his reach, what might be going on?
He lived a perfectly double life.