moment when Mary caught sight of her father looking for her and Rush down
the railway station platform, during which the whole fabric of misgivings
about her home-coming dissolved as dreams do when one wakes. It had not
been a dream she knew, nor the mere concoction of her morbid fancy. He
had not looked at her like this nor kissed her like this--not once since
that fatal journey to Vienna five years ago. Had something happened
between him and Paula that made the difference? Or was it her brother's
presence, that, serving somehow to take off the edge, worked a mysterious
catalysis?

When John, after standing off and gazing wordless for a moment at this
new son of his, this man he had never seen, in his captain's uniform with
bits of ribbon on the breast of it,--tried to say how proud he was and
choked instead, it was for Mary that he reached out an unconscious,
embracing arm, the emotion which would not go into words finding an
outlet for itself that way.

When they got out to the motor and old Pete, once coachman, now
chauffeur, his eyes gleaming over the way Rush had all but hugged him,
said to her, "You home to stay, too, Miss Mary?" her father's hand which
clasped her arm revealed the thrilling interest with which he awaited her
answer to that question. The importunity of the red-cap with the luggage
relieved her of the necessity for answering but the answer in her heart
just then was "Yes."

It was with a wry self-scornful smile that she recalled, later that day,
the emotions of the ride home. If at any time before they got to the
house, her father had repeated the old servant's question, "Are you home
to stay, Mary?" she would, she knew, have kissed the hand that she held
clasped in hers, wept blissfully over it and told him she wanted never to