“You haven’t grown strong yet, Jervis,” said Marian.
“Stronger than I was—only for this. Polly, you’d better come straight in. Come to father.” He walked before her, slowly and with audible panting, leading the way into the little parlor. Old Cairns was alone there still, smoking as before. Jervis sat down, with so violent a fit of coughing that he could not speak. Marian stood still in one doorway, upright and composed, with her hands drooping before her; Hannah appeared in the other, frowning and disturbed.
“Now that just comes of going and standing in a draught. You might as well have had the sense to shut the door at once. A nice bother it’ll be to-night. There, don’t speak, or you’ll bring it on worse. Who’s this?”
Marian came a few steps forward, moving quietly, and wearing the same look of settled calm upon her thin, worn features. She did not seem agitated by this return to her childhood’s home. John Cairns was gazing hard.
“Why, it’s—it’s—our—Polly—I do believe!” he said.
“Yes, I’m Polly. I have come home again, father,” she said.
“It’s Polly herself; I do believe,” repeated the old man. He seemed, very much surprised—more surprised than either gratified or displeased. “Polly, her very own self—after all these years—and grown into a middle-aged woman. Lost all her good looks, too. But it’s really Polly.”
“I’m so glad you know me, father,” she said.
“It’s easy to know you. It isn’t so easy to know what you’ve come back for now,” Hannah’s harsh voice said.
“I’m come because I thought it was right for me to do so,” Marian answered, with slow utterance. “I’ve been taught that I was wrong to go away and wrong to stay away. That brought me home.”