He thought of them all then, in the pause that came between the struggle he had just passed through and the struggle that lay ahead, as he had not had the time or peace to think of them since he had left Patna. Nor did he try to force the thoughts from him as he had done on leaving Patna, but he went in search of them as a father goes in search of little truant children hiding in the dark, and brings them back and holds them close with caresses.
He brought the vision of Mactier forth so, and he went over every familiar gesture, every tone of Mactier's voice he knew; he called up the mother-face of his aunt, the soft pressure of her hand; and he thought of his uncle and Maggie and Kenneth, and of Stewart—lingeringly—and of his father.
And then he brought forth the picture plate, buried in the dark room of his soul, and he thought of her; and he thought, and thought of her! He held the dream picture up between him and the light of the dying day, and once he put out his hand slowly and it rested lightly in the air, but in his dream it rested on Cary's head. Once he raised his head suddenly and sharply, and he breathed quicker than his wont. The night shadows crept up and peered into his thin, lined face with the dark-circled eyes; and though he was alone with only the air touching him, in his dream his face was close to hers.
And back of the dreams was the echo of the ocean on the crags. But the dreams and the echo faded as he came within sight of the military hospital, and the thoughts receded back and back into the darkness before the new necessity of the hour; but the truant children were not lost, only hiding from him, and peering at him from the shadows and waiting for him to come and look for them and take them home.
He dismounted, hardly conscious of the greetings the men gave him as they crowded around him, and he went at once to Mackenzie, as an officer reporting for duty.
Mackenzie looked at him sharply as he entered. The full beard he had grown had changed him, and would have hidden the loss of flesh and the haggard lines to any other than Mackenzie.
"You don't look fit to go on with the job, boy," he said concisely.
Trevelyan laughed.
"That's absurd, don't you know? I'm all right."
"It's more than you look—you're all pulled down!"