The train was even then drawing close to the little station huddled in among the houses. Van Patten began to gather up his traps.
“I get off here,” explained Van Patten.
Barnes, too, rose.
“So do I,” he announced.
CHAPTER XXIII
A YOUNG PRODIGAL COMES HOME
Once upon the platform, Van Patten looked around with the query,
“Which way you going?”
“Up your way,” answered Barnes, nodding in the direction of the brick house. “Won’t you walk a bit with me?”
“I don’t know but what I will,” answered the other. “I haven’t anything but a dress-suit case, and I feel like stretching my legs.”
Barnes led the way, and the other fell into step at his side. The road was going in the right direction now. It was as though every dusty fern, every whispering birch, every stalwart pine pointed towards the brick house. And Eleanor herself seemed very close to him. It was as though she were keeping pace the other side of him. How the old world sang of her! The sun was dropping towards the horizon line, seeking, as he knew, her black hair. An oriole, high in an elm, was caroling her name. The lazy locusts were rattling like gray-haired crones over their tea—of her.