"Oh, I remember you!" he said. "You are the young woman who assisted with my niece. Are you still employed here?"
A foolish red appeared in Ellen's cheeks.
"No."
"Did you know that my niece had—had passed away?" Mayne almost said "expired."
"No," answered Ellen. She felt that she was not expected to make any comment and she made none. She stood awkwardly looking about. "Is there anything I can do?"
"I believe not, thank you," answered Mayne in his booming voice. He passed into the library and sat down in Hilda's corner of the sofa and lifted a newspaper.
Thus dismissed, Ellen lifted her heavy bag and carried it across the street to a bench. The air was intensely hot and she was hungry, but she did not connect weakness or hunger with her despair. He was ill, he had been very ill or he would not be in a hospital. And he had sent her no word! Moreover, she had been in a sense turned out! Certainly Fate was helping her to conquer herself!
Then, suddenly, a desperate longing came into her heart, a longing for childhood, for innocence, for ignorance, for freedom from this consuming passion. She wanted her father's sheltering arm, the sound of his voice. Lacking him, she thought of those nearest her in blood—Grandfather had loved her and so had Matthew and Amos. She believed that they would welcome her. Twilight was at hand; it was the hour when tired men and women hasten homeward; she too would go home.
She walked rapidly toward the railroad station. At the Square, while she waited for a break in the line of automobiles, she saw in a group of Salvation Army workers a tall brother shepherding the passers-by to positions within earshot of the preacher's voice. In that figure she could not be mistaken, it was the first feature of a familiar landscape seen after a long journey. She did not stop to account for his presence or his blue uniform, she went up to him quickly.
"Why, Amos!"