be much joy in the farewell that was
coming. Winced, and almost staggered. He had walked all the way from the
city, and he had had no food that day.

"We'll have to break it to him very gently," he said. "And he mustn't
see me like this. If you can find some of my clothes and Reynolds'
razor, I'll--" He caught suddenly to the back of a chair and held on to
it. "I haven't taken time to eat much to-day," he said, smiling at her.
"I guess I need food, Aunt Lucy."

For the first time then she saw his clothes, his shabbiness and
his pallor, and perhaps she guessed the truth. She got up, her face
twitching, and pushed him into a chair.

"You sit here," she said, "and leave the door closed. The nurse is out
for a walk, and she'll be in soon. I'll bring some milk and cookies now,
and start the fire. I've got some chops in the house."

When she came back almost immediately, with the familiar tray and the
familiar food, he was sitting where she had left him. He had spent the
entire time, had she known it, in impressing on his mind the familiar
details of the room, to carry away with him.

She stood beside him, a hand on his shoulder, to see that he drank the
milk slowly.

"I've got the fire going," she said. "And I'll run up now and get your
clothes. I--had put them away." Her voice broke a little. "You see,
we--You can change in your laboratory. Richard, can't you? If you go
upstairs he'll hear you."

He reached up and caught her hand. That touch, too, of the nearest to
a mother's hand that he had known, he meant to carry away with him. He
could not speak.

She bustled away, into her bright kitchen first, and then with happy
stealth to the store-room. Her very heart was singing within her. She
neither thought nor reasoned. Dick was back, and all would be well.
If she had any subconscious anxieties they were quieted, also
subconsciously, by confidence in the men who were fighting his battle
for him, by Walter Wheeler and Bassett and Harrison Miller. That Dick
himself would present any difficulty lay beyond her worst fears.

She had been out of the room only twenty minutes when she returned to
David and prepared to break her great news. At first she thought he was
asleep. He was lying back with his eyes closed and his hands crossed on
the prayer-book. But he looked up at her, and was instantly roused to
full attention by her face.

"You've had some news," he said.

"Yes, David. There's a little news. Don't count too