e something to say about that--but it is nice to have you speak as if
the old town meant something to you."

He looked about him.

"I love the place," he said simply.

"I am glad. So do I; but then I have lived here all my life. The next
time we talk I want to know more about your plans for the future--yours
and Madeline's, I mean. How proud she must be of you."

He looked up at her; she was standing upon the upper step and he on the
walk below.

"Madeline and I--" he began. Then he stopped. What was the use? He did
not want to talk about it. He waved his hand and turned away.

After dinner he went out into the kitchen to talk to Mrs. Ellis, who
was washing dishes. She was doing it as she did all her share of the
housework, with an energy and capability which would have delighted the
soul of a "scientific management" expert. Except when under the spell of
a sympathetic attack Rachel was ever distinctly on the job.

And of course she was, as always, glad to see her protege, her Robert
Penfold. The proprietary interest which she had always felt in him was
more than ever hers now. Had not she been the sole person to hint at the
possibility of his being alive, when every one else had given him up for
dead? Had not she been the only one to suggest that he might have been
taken prisoner? Had SHE ever despaired of seeing him again--on this
earth and in the flesh? Indeed, she had not; at least, she had never
admitted it, if she had. So then, hadn't she a RIGHT to feel that she
owned a share in him? No one ventured to dispute that right.

She turned and smiled over one ample shoulder when he entered the
kitchen.

"Hello," she hailed cheerfully. "Come callin', have you, Robert--Albert,
I mean? It would have been a great help to me if you'd been christened
Robert. I call you that so much to myself it comes almost more natural
than the other. On account of you bein' so just like Robert Penfold in
the book, you know," she added.

"Yes, yes, of course, Rachel, I understand," put in Albert hastily. He
was not in the mood to listen to a dissertation on a text taken from
Foul Play. He looked about the room and sighed happily.

"There isn't a speck anywhere, is there?" he observed. "It is just as it
used to be, just as I used to think of it when I was laid up over there.
When I wanted to try and eat a bit, so as to keep what strength I had,
I would think about this kitchen of yours, Rachel. It didn't do to
think of the place