"Yes, I told her that."

"She makes no mention of coming home?"

"Not a word."

"d.i.c.k, she must return, and at once," Dora declared, vehemently.

"Not to this place, Dora. She would never do it. It wouldn't be fair to ask her."

"But something must be done."

"I feel pretty sick about it. It was partly through me and my wretched debts that father and mother got so short of money. Mother was always hard up. It runs in the blood. And, what with one thing and another, we were all of us in a pretty tight fix; and she tried to get us out of it."

"I don't blame her for altering her father's checks. That's nothing,"

observed Dora, with typical feminine inconsequence, "but letting people think that--"

"I know, I know! But it couldn't really have done me any harm when I was under the turf; and it meant ruin to father, if she had done nothing.

Look here, Dora, mother must come back, or father must go to her. We've got to arrange it between us. If mother won't come home, she must be fetched."

Dora sat for a few moments with her elbows resting on her knees and her chin on her hands, gazing thoughtfully out of the window, watching the sparrows on the path outside.

"Can she ever forgive him?" she asked, after a pause.

"Well, the sermon was certainly pretty rough, especially after things had been all smoothed out. But father is a demon for doing nasty things when he thinks they've got to be done. You don't suppose he's any less fond of mother than before, do you?"

"No; but, you see, a woman feels differently about these things--things of conscience, I mean. Your mother probably thinks he despises her, and a proud woman can never stand that."

"But he doesn't. It was himself that he was troubled about, to think that he had strayed from the strict path of duty to such an extent as to allow me--his son--to be blamed for that--Well, it's all wrong, anyway, and mother's got to come home."

"How are we to set about it, d.i.c.k?"

"Dora, you'll have to go and fetch her. I've thought it all out."

"I? How can I? That wouldn't do at all, d.i.c.k. Don't you see that she would resent it--the advance coming from me, because I was one of those most concerned and affected by her sin; and, being a woman, more likely to be hard upon her than anyone else."

"You mean that you nearly married Ormsby because she led you to think that I wasn't worth a tinker's d.a.m.n. Well, perhaps I wasn't--before the war. But I learned things out there. I had to pull myself together, and endure and go through such privation that a whole life on fifteen dollars a week would be luxury in comparison. I'd go to mother at once, if I were strong enough, but I'm not. So, what do you suggest, little girl?"

"I think we ought to sound your father on the matter first. He is difficult to approach. He has a trick of making you feel that he prefers to bear his sorrow alone; but I think it can be managed, if we use a little harmless deception."

"How?"

"Well, first of all, it wouldn't be a bad idea to get Jane to turn your mother's room out, and clean it as if getting ready for the return of the mistress of the house."

"I see," cried d.i.c.k, with a spasmodic tightening of the right hand which rested on Dora's shoulder. "Give father the impression that she's coming back, just to see how he takes it."

"Yes."

"Good! Set about it to-day."

"I'll find Jane at once. And, now, I've been here with you quite a long time, and there are many things for me to attend to."

"No, not yet," he pleaded with an invalid's sigh, a very mechanical one; but he had found it effectual in reaching Dora's heart on previous occasions. It was efficacious to-day. Her heart was full to bursting with joy and love and--the spring. d.i.c.k again raised the delicate question of the date of their marriage, and Dora no longer procrastinated. It should take place as soon as ever the rector and his wife were reconciled.

John Swinton, who was just beginning to move about the house, white-faced and shaky, with a l.u.s.treless eye and snow-white head, was awakened from his torpor by a tremendous bustling up and down stairs. Furniture strewed the landing outside his wife's room, and it was evident that something was going on.

"What is happening?" he asked on one occasion, when he found the road to the staircase absolutely barred.

"The mistress's room is being prepared for her return," replied Jane, to whom the query was addressed.

He started as though someone had struck him in the breast.

"Coming home," he gasped, staring at the woman with dropped jaw and wondering eye.

"Miss Dora's orders, sir. She said the room might be wanted any day now, and it must be cleaned."

"Coming home," murmured the rector, as he steadied himself with the aid of the banister, "coming home! coming home!" There was a different inflection in his voice each time he repeated the phrase. Tenderness crept into the words, and tears streamed down his cheeks, as he pa.s.sed slowly into his study. "Coming home! Mary coming home!"

d.i.c.k and Dora were rather alarmed at the result of their plot. They dreaded the effect of possible disappointment; but they had learned what they wanted to know--that was the main point. The rector was inconsolable without his wife. Her return was the only thing that could dispel the torpor which rendered him indifferent to daily concerns.

Netty was called into counsel to decide what was to be done. Her simple settlement of the difficulty was very welcome.

"I shall just write and tell mother what you've done. Then, she can act as she pleases; but I expect she'll be very angry."

CHAPTER x.x.xII

HOME AGAIN

Netty's letter to her mother was characteristic:

"MY DEAR MOTHER,

I do wish you would come home. It's positively hateful here without you. Dora Dundas goes to-morrow, thank goodness, and, of course, d.i.c.k is in the dumps. She has managed the house as though it were her own, and I, for one, shall be heartily glad to see the back of her.

"I am very miserable for many reasons. Since that wretched business about the checks, Mrs. Bent has been so different, and so has Harry. He is always at the Ocklebournes', and you know what Nelly Ocklebourne is. The way she behaves is disgraceful. Harry was always particularly friendly in that quarter, and it is absurd of them to talk about the friendship of a lifetime as an excuse for a quite disgraceful familiarity. Wherever he goes, Nell is certain to turn up, too. It is quite marked.

"We all want you to come home, father included. Dora and d.i.c.k had your room turned out yesterday, and, when father saw the muddle, he asked why. They told him your room was being got ready for your return. He seemed overjoyed and quite overcome, and for the first time since his illness he looks something like his old self. He is studying the time-tables and the clocks all day, expecting you at any minute, so you need not be afraid the excitement will be too much for him."

Mrs. Swinton read no more than this. A sudden wild happiness seized her.

She pressed the letter to her lips, and sobbed with relief. All the pent-up misery of the last few weeks were washed away in tears; the barriers of pride were broken down; she was as humble and contrite as a little child. She startled her maid by an unusual morning activity, and consulted the time-tables quite as eagerly as John. He wanted her; that was enough. She cared nothing now for the censorious tongues. Her gentle, sweet-spirited husband awaited her return. All else melted away into insignificance. He was a beacon in the darkness, a very mountain of light on the horizon. He was calling on her--this hero of schoolgirl days, this lover of her runaway marriage.

The eleven-o'clock express found her, accompanied by her faithful and astonished maid, being carried toward New York. On the way, she sent a telegram, announcing her return. In the momentous message, there was no shirking the main issue. It was to John himself: