"They are shining because you are here, Richard."
Cousin Sulie, in the door, broke down and cried, "Oh, we've prayed for it."
They clung to him, the two little growing-old women, who had wanted him, and who had worked without him.
He had no words for them, for he could not speak with steadiness. But in that moment he knew that he should never go back to Austin. That he should live and die in the home of his fathers. And that his work was here.
He tried, a little later, to make a joke of their devotion. "Mother, you and Cousin Sulie mustn't. I shall need a body-guard to protect me. You'll spoil me with softness and ease."
"I shall buckle on your armor soon enough," she told him. "Did Eric meet you at the station?"
"Yes, I shall go straight to Beulah's. I stopped in to see old Peter before I came up. I can pull him through, but I shall have to have some nurses."
And now big Ben, at an even trot, carried Richard to the Playhouse. Toby, mad with gladness at the return of his master, raced ahead.
Up in the pretty pink and white room lay Beulah. No longer plump and blooming, but wasted and wan with dry lips and hollow eyes.
Eric had said to Richard, "If she dies I shall die, too."