alive--to see his mother, and his sister Lorna--and Helen--and
then.... But he was here now and all that prayer was falsehood. Just
to get home was not enough.. He had been cheated of career, love,
happiness.

It required extreme effort to cross the little yard, to mount the
porch. In a moment more he would see his mother. He heard her within,
somewhere at the back of the house. Wherefore he tip-toed round to the
kitchen door. Here he paused, quaking. A cold sweat broke out all over
him. Why was this return so dreadful? He pressed a shaking hand over
his heart. How surely he knew he could not deceive his mother! The
moment she saw him, after the first flash of joy, she would see the
wreck of the boy she had let go to war. Lane choked over his emotion,
but he could not spare her. Opening the door he entered.

There she stood at the stove and she looked up at the sound he made.
Yes! but stranger than all other changes was the change in her. She
was not the mother of his boyhood. Nor was the change alone age or
grief or wasted cheek. The moment tore cruelly at Lane's heart. She
did not recognize him swiftly. But when she did....

"Oh God!... Daren! My boy!" she whispered.

"Mother!"




CHAPTER II