“You’ll come back to us after Christmas, I hope, David,” said the master.
“I shall probably not be able to. I don’t know just what there will be for me to do,” David answered.
“I hope you will find it possible to continue in the career that your father had planned.”
“I should like to, for his sake.”
“Whatever happens, David, our friendship mustn’t end here. You must look on me as always your friend.”
The train drew into the station for its brief stop. David and Mr. Dean shook hands at the steps and parted.
That night David had a few hours of broken sleep in his stuffy berth; the next day he spent gazing out of the window at the brown farming lands of New Jersey and Pennsylvania and the bare, stark forests and the little villages that seemed to glance up at the train with a start of wonder and to relapse into rumination after it fled by. At ten o’clock the next morning the train drew into the station of the city that was his home.
There was no one to meet him at the station. He took a Rosewood car and in half an hour alighted at the familiar old street corner. With his bag banging against his leg and his heart pounding in his breast, he ran along the sidewalk. And then suddenly, though he had been trying to prepare himself for this all through the journey, his legs weakened and threatened to collapse under him, and tears flooded his eyes. He passed through the gate with uncertain steps and a sense that the world was reeling round him. The blinds were down, and a black streamer fluttered beside the door.
From somewhere within the house they had been watching, for the door opened as he mounted the steps; the next moment he had his mother in his arms, and Ralph was standing by, with face upturned to kiss him.