Were they shielding him from some great and ever-menacing peril--a danger with which, for some inconceivable reason, they dared not acquaint him?
In the short time he had known him, a strange feeling for John Adare had found a place in Philip's heart.

It was more than friendship, more than the feeling which his supposed relationship might have roused.
This big-hearted, tender, rumbling voiced giant of a man he had grown to love.

And he found himself struggling blindly now to keep from him what the others were trying to conceal, for he knew that John Adare's heart would crumble down like a pile of dust if he knew the truth.

He was thinking of the baby, and it seemed as if his thoughts flashed like fire to the other.
Adare was laughing softly in his beard.
"You should have seen the kid last night, Philip.

When they woke 'im he stared at me for a time as though I was an ogre, then he grinned, kicked me, and grabbed my whiskers, I've just one fault to find.