"Poor devil thinks he's struck the patrol wagon!" he laughed. "Nothing like water to sober up on!" He put out his foot in a certain way he had learned in Japan; the intruder staggered and fell with a loud splash into the rain pool that had formed beside the platform.
"Drive on!" said Tom Lee. "He's all right! Dr. Ross's, please!"
It was a silent drive. Tom, full of his own thoughts, did not care to talk to Flanagan's boy or any other boy; his thoughts flew ahead on bright wings. Yet still his eyes took note through the dusk of rain of familiar objects. The full moon was behind the clouds, and mid-June evenings are never very dark. Here was the Street, empty and silent: who was night-watchman now, he wondered? What pranks he and Bobby Chanter used to play on big Andy Doolan! Bobby was a good sort. Tom hoped he was here still Ah! was that Cheeseman's? "Just wait, Uncle Ivory! I'll be down to-morrow, sure pop! What price molasses peppermints?"
Up the hill now; ah! there was the Common! Tom's heart was beating fast. Those lights, straight across, were hers. Ah! here was his own house, dark and shuttered. Poor mother! dearest mother! she would be glad he was coming home, even if she was not here to welcome him. She loved Kitty like her own daughter. She knew the hope of his heart; it was her own, too, she told him so the night before she went away. The sweet Lady would be pleased, too: the lovely dark-lily lady, his second mother. Everybody would be pleased, he thought; if only Kitty herself could put up with a brown, wrinkled, carved-up anatomy like himself. "Kitty! Kitty, do you hear? I am coming!"
The carriage stopped. The silent figure on the front seat swung lightly to the ground: the door was opened. A trembling voice spoke.
"Will your Grace step out, or shall I bring a foot-stool? Tom! Tom! don't! not in the street, my dear! my dear!"
CHAPTER XXIII
haste to the wedding!
Well! that is really all. Tom had come home: those four little words hold the rest of Kitty Ross's story.