Miles’s story had been listened to with the closest attention by all the little party.
“It’s just like a chapter out of a book,” Florence whispered to Roy. “I wonder if he’ll ever find out who he really is?”
“But how did you come by the name Harding?” Roy inquired. “Weren’t you Miles Morrisey once?”
“Yes, but when they went away, and I got to having such hard knocks from the world, I didn’t want to drag the name down with me, and so I thought Harding would suit me pretty well, and took it.”
Rex seemed inclined to grow excited over the theme, so Mrs. Raynor proposed an immediate adjournment.
“To-morrow is Sunday,” she said, “and Miles can have a long day with you.”
In the course of this long day, the wanderer told Roy why he had been so drawn to Rex.
“I’d seen lots of nice looking fellows like him,” he said, “but they always looked down on me and kind of kept off, as if they didn’t want me to touch them with my dirty clothes. But I had to touch Rex when he fell over, and he didn’t seem to mind it.”
Rex flushed when Roy told him this.
“I’m afraid I didn’t seem to mind because I was too far gone to mind anything,” he said. “But I do like Miles and would like to do all I can for him.”