furnish forth a welcoming meal if any such were called for.

For all his waywardness, for all his self-will, the younger son had
loved his father well, and it was a terrible shock to him (having come
to his senses) to find that he had returned too late. And for all his
hardness and narrowness the eldest son also had loved his father
well--strong tribute to the quality of the dead parent--and when he
found himself bereft he naturally visited wrath upon the head of him who
he believed rightly was the cause of the untimely death of the old man.

As he sat in the study, if such it might be called, of the departed,
before the old-fashioned desk with its household and farm and business
accounts, which in their order and method and long use were eloquent of
his provident and farseeing father, his heart was hot within his breast.
Grief and resentment alike gnawed at his vitals. They had received vivid
reports, even in the little town in which they dwelt, of the wild doings
of the wanderer, but they had enjoyed no direct communication with him.
After a while even rumour ceased to busy itself with the doings of the
youth. He had dropped out of their lives utterly after he passed over
the hills and far away.

The father had failed slowly for a time, only to break suddenly and
swiftly in the end. And the hurried frantic search for the missing had
brought no results. Ironically the god of chance had led the young man's
repentant footsteps to the door too late.

"Where's father?" cried John Carstairs to the startled woman who stared
at him as if she had seen a ghost as, at his knock, she opened the door
which he had found locked, not against him, but the hour was late and it
was the usual nightly precaution: