Part 84

David's eyes followed her about the room.

“I've got an idea you're keeping something from me, Lucy.”

“I? Why should I do that?”

“Then where's Harrison?” he demanded, querulously.

She told him one of the few white lies of her life when she said: “He hasn't been well. He'll be over to-morrow.” She sat down and picked up the prayer-book, only to find him lifting himself in the bed and listening.

“Somebody closed the hall door, Lucy. If it's Reynolds, I want to see him.”

She got up and went to the head of the stairs. The light was low in the hall beneath, and she saw a man standing there. But she still wore her reading glasses, and she saw at first hardly more than a figure.

“Is that you, Doctor Reynolds?” she asked, in her high old voice.

Then she put her hand to her throat and stood rigid, staring down. For the man had whipped off his cap and stood with his arms wide, looking up.

Holding to the stair-rail, her knees trembling under her, Lucy went down, and not until Dick's arms were around her was she sure that it was Dick, and not his shabby, weary ghost. She clung to him, tears streaming down her face, still in that cautious silence which governed them both; she held him off and looked at him, and then strained herself to him again, as though the sense of unreality were too strong, and only the contact of his rough clothing made him real to her.

It was not until they were in her sitting-room with the door closed that either of them dared to speak. Or perhaps, could speak. Even then she kept hold of him.

“Dick!” she said. “Dick!”

And that, over and over.

“How is he?” he was able to ask finally.

“He has been very ill. I began to think--Dick, I'm afraid to tell him. I'm afraid he'll die of joy.”

He winced at that. There could not 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 much on it. Don't sit up. David, I have heard something that makes me think he is alive. Alive and well.”

He made a desperate effort and controlled himself.