'Yes, perhaps.'
'Good-night, Robert.'
'Good-night, dear.'
He is alone now. He stands fingering the fishing-rods tenderly, then wanders back into the ingle-nook. In the room we could scarcely see him, for it has gone slowly dark there, a grey darkness, as if the lamp, though still burning, was becoming unable to shed light. Through the greyness we see him very well beyond it in the glow of the fire. He sits on the settle and tries to read his paper. He breaks down. He is a pitiful lonely man.
In the silence something happens. A well-remembered voice says, 'Father.' Mr. Don looks into the greyness from which this voice comes, and he sees his son. We see no one, but we are to understand that, to Mr. Don, Dick is standing there in his habit as he lived. He goes to his boy.
'Dick!'
'I have come to sit with you for a bit, father.'
It is the gay, young, careless voice.
'It's you, Dick; it's you!'
'It's me all right, father. I say, don't be startled, or anything of that kind. We don't like that.'