"Maybe he went to see somebody in Upper Chester?"

"But he doesn't know anybody at Upper Chester. Of course it's possible. Only--you gave me such a fright, Milly!" Mrs. Dilworth put her hand over her mouth and trembled. "However, I guess he's all right, as you say. I guess we'll find him at home when we get back.

It's lucky I came to meet you, because I can lug your things for you.

How did you drop your m.u.f.f, dear? Here, take it; your hands must be cold. Oh, Milly, you gave me an awful fright--it was right on the very edge of the ice; those confounded cutters hadn't put up any ropes. You do really think there's no reason to be uneasy about Ned?"

"No," she said. Her knees shook; she had to pause to swallow before she spoke. Oh, what if he should find her out? As she trudged along at his side in the cold darkness she said to herself, with a sickening sense of apprehension, that if he found her out she should die. Then as her mind cleared she tried in her brief way to encourage him about their boy; yet, as they drew nearer home and she saw again the firelit windows, she began to awaken to the situation: Neddy had gone out to skate; at six, did Nora say? Of course he might have stopped to see somebody in Upper Chester; only Neddy never went to see anybody anywhere--except (Amelia Dilworth had forgotten her!)--except that Hayes girl--and she wasn't at home. Yes, it was strange; and worrying, perhaps. But she only repeated, as they went hurrying up to the back door, that she was sure Neddy was all right. But she held her breath to listen for his voice haranguing his sisters in the sitting-room.

Instead, the two girls came running out to meet them.

"Oh, father, did you find Ned? Oh, here's mother; she'll know where he is."

"Mother, I'm sort of scared about him," Mary whispered.

"He's gone to see some friend," the mother said, and her brevity, so agonizing to her, seemed to rea.s.sure the others.

"He hasn't any friend except Miss Helen Hayes," Nancy said, "and she went away last week."

"Maybe he's gone to hunt her up," Mary said, giggling, and her father told her to be quiet.

"It's thoughtless in him to be so late. But your mother isn't worried, so I guess we needn't be. Your mother says there is not the slightest cause for anxiety, and she knows."

"Come to supper," Amelia said, her heart sinking; and the commonplace suggestion cheered them all, although Tom Dilworth did not like to lose the a.s.surance of his wife's presence, even to have her go up-stairs to take off her bonnet, and went with her, saying again, decidedly, that there was, as she said, no possible reason for uneasiness, and that he himself hadn't a particle of anxiety. "But I'll give that boy a piece of my mind for worrying you so. Why, Milly, what a fat pocket-book!

Where did you get so much money, my dear? I didn't know the hardware trade was so prosperous. Look here, Milly--it is pretty late, honestly?"

She took her purse out of his hands, her own trembling. For a moment she could not speak, and leaned forward to look into the swinging gla.s.s and make pretence of untying a knot in her bonnet-strings. "Oh, he'll come home soon," she said.

In spite of a.s.surances, the tea-table was not very cheerful--the girls stopped short in the middle of a sentence to listen for a step on the porch. Tom got up twice to look out of the window. Mrs. Dilworth thought she heard the gate slam, and held her breath; but no Ned appeared. The evening was endlessly long. Tom pretended to read his newspaper, and kept his eye on one spot for five minutes at a time. At ten he packed the girls off to bed; at eleven he was walking up and down the room; at twelve he told his wife to go to bed; but somehow or other he went himself, while she sat up, "to let the boy in."

You can make excuses for this sort of lateness up to a certain point; but it is curious that at about 2.30 in the morning the excuses all give out. Tom Dilworth got up and dressed. "Something has happened, Milly," he said, brokenly. His wife put her arms around him, trying to comfort him.

"If Miss Hayes was only at home," she said, "maybe she would have some idea of his plans. He might have told her. And she could tell us what to do."

"Who?" said Tom--"that Hayes girl? Maybe so. I hadn't thought of her.

No, I don't believe she'd be any help. She hasn't got much sense in that kind of way."

Such ages and ages was Milly away from her great experience of jealousy that she felt no relief at this bald betrayal. Together they went out onto the porch, listening, and straining their eyes. The moon was just going down; it was very cold; far off a dog barked. But there was no human sound. The two haggard people went shivering back into the hall, where a candle burned dimly in the gla.s.s bell hanging at the foot of the stairs.

"Something has certainly happened," Tom said again. "Oh, Milly, you are always so calm and I go all to pieces." He leaned his elbow against the wall and hid his face in his arm. His wife heard him groan.

"And--I've been hard on him sometimes," he said.

She took his hand and kissed it silently.

Poor Tom went to pieces more than once in the days that followed--dreadful days of panic and despair. Old Chester, aroused at daybreak by the terrified father, decided at once that the boy was drowned; but everybody stood ready to help the stricken parents with hopeful words to the contrary, words which rang as hollow to Thomas and his wife as to the well-meaning liars.

It was on Wednesday that he had disappeared. On Friday they dragged the river through the open holes; on Sat.u.r.day, blew up the ice and dragged all the way down to the second bend. That night Nancy and Mary crept away to cry in their own room; Tom sat with his head buried in his arms; his wife knelt beside him, touching him sometimes with a quiet hand, but never speaking. Dr. Lavendar came in and put his hand on Tom's shoulder for a minute, and then went away. The firelight slipped flickering about the room; sometimes the coal in the grate snapped and chuckled, and a spurt of flame shone on the two suddenly aged faces. And then into the silent room came, with hurried, shamefaced triumph--Edwin.

"I--I'm afraid you've been anxious--"

"He ought to have written," said another voice, breathless and uncertain, and breaking into nervous laughter. "It is naughty in him to have forgotten. I--I told him so."

Thomas Dilworth lifted his head and stared, silently; but his wife broke out into wild laughter and streaming tears; she ran and threw herself on Edwin's breast, her throat strangling with sobs.

"Oh--she's found Neddy! She has brought him back to us!--she has found him! Oh, Miss Hayes, G.o.d bless you--G.o.d bless you! Oh, where did you find him?"

Miss Hayes opened her lips--then bit the lower one, and stood, scarlet.

"I meant to write," Edwin began to explain--"of course I meant to write, but--"

"Oh, dear Mrs. Dilworth," Helen's fluttering voice took up the excuse, "you must forgive him"--she came as though to put her arms about Ned's mother. "After all, a bridegroom, you know--"

Milly lifted her head from Edwin's shoulder and gaped at her.

"Bridegroom?"

Thomas Dilworth got on his feet and swore. Miss Helen Hayes--or, no; Mrs. Edwin Dilworth--came and hung upon his arm.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THOMAS DILWORTH GOT ON HIS FEET AND SWORE"]

"You won't mind very much? You'll forgive him? We couldn't tell, because--because papa would have interfered; but I knew your dear, kind heart. Mrs. Dilworth, I have so revered Mr. Dilworth!--that was one reason I said _yes_. You'll let me be your little girl, Mr. Dilworth?"

"Little--_grandmother_!" said Tom Dilworth; and burst into a roar of laughter; then stopped, and said through his set teeth to his son, "You scoundrel!"

"Thomas--don't!" the mother entreated. "He has come back."

"He'd better have stayed away!" Thomas said, furiously, in all the anger of suddenly relieved pain.

"Oh, dear Mrs. Dilworth," Helen murmured, "forgive us! He ought to have written--I ought to have reminded him. But--_you_ understand? I know you do. Just these first beautiful days, one forgets everything."

"Well, I tell you I meant to write," Ned persisted, doggedly. "But mother put me all out by going over to the Bend in the afternoon. I was going to take that train, and of course I couldn't; Kensy's house is right there by the station. And I had to take the morning train instead; and it put me all out. I had to get up so early I forgot to take any clothes," he added, resentfully. "It wasn't my fault."

"Not your fault?" his father said, and then turned to his wife, almost with a sob. "Milly, can he be our boy, this sneak?"

"Yes; yes, he is, Tom; indeed he is, dear. And he just forgot; he didn't mean anything wrong." Milly was almost voluble, and she was crying hard. And then she looked at the woman who had brought him back--the faded, anxious, simpering woman, who for once had no words ready. Milly looked at her, and suddenly opened her arms and took her son's elderly wife to her heart. "Oh, you poor woman," she said, "how unhappy you must have been at home!"

Helen looked at her blankly, then dropped her head down on the kind shoulder, and Milly felt her quiver.

"She's fifty!" Tom said, trembling with anger. "How the devil a son of mine can be such a jack--"

"Tom, dear! there now, _don't_," the mother said; "he's at home. Just think; he's at home! and we thought--we thought--" Her voice broke.

"We'll all love you, Miss Hayes--I mean Helen," she whispered to the sobbing woman.

Then, with a sort of gasp, she put her daughter-in-law's arms aside gently, and went over and kissed her husband.

As for Thomas Dilworth, after the first shock of anger and mortification had pa.s.sed, and the young couple had finally settled themselves upon the disgusted bounty of the respective fathers, he used to whistle incessantly a certain song much in vogue at the time:

"I hanker To spank her, Now I'm her papa!"