My uncle looked at him with amusement.
"You are—an independent young man," he said.
"I believe in Destiny," said O'Rane, with an answering smile.
"What on earth has that to do with it?" asked Bertrand.
"I wasn't going to lie down and die as long as there was preordained work to do. Destiny meant me to win through."
"She didn't help you much," I said.
"I'm not so sure. I dropped down once on the sidewalk in Chicago, and a woman took me in and nursed me round. Nursed me by day and—earned her living by night. When I went to pay her back and say good-bye before I sailed, she was dead. Just two months in all. And if ever a woman's soul fluttered straight to heaven——"
"What are your plans for the future?" Bertrand interrupted prosaically. He, too, seemingly found O'Rane's intensity of feeling and speech a little disconcerting at first.
Raney woke suddenly from his reverie.
"I'm going back to Oxford to-morrow, sir."