“If you want to come home, you can.”
“I hadn’t thought of that till you spoke. I don’t know what to—”
“Your mother would like to have you here,” said Chase huskily, “if you care to come.” It was as near a plea as he could bring himself.
Wint nodded with quick decision. “All right, sir,” he said. “I’d like to come. I’ll bring my stuff to-morrow.”
They shook hands abruptly, with a curt word that hid their feelings. “Good night,” said Chase, and Wint said good night, and his father closed the door behind him.
Wint felt, while he walked back to Amos Caretall’s house, as though he had been stripped of a load, had been cleansed, had been made whole. The world had never looked so clean and bright to him before.
A few minutes after he left his home, Mrs. Chase came back from the neighbor’s. She saw at once that something had happened; there was a change in her husband. He was flushed, and his eyes were shining. She asked:
“Why, what’s the matter with you? Has anything happened? Is there anything wrong? You know, I said to-night, I told Mrs. Hullis, that I just had a feeling something was going to happen. I told Mrs. Hullis I just knew things were going to go wrong. Oh, it does look like we have more trouble all the time.”
“Wint is coming home, Margaret,” said her husband.
Poor, garrulous mother! For once she was shocked dumb. Her eyes widened, and she dabbed at them with her hand, as though a cobweb had stuck across them. She turned white, and she seemed to shrink and grow old. And she sat down slowly in the straight, uncomfortable chair she always used, and put her worried old head down in her arms and cried.