Again the sun had set and it was twilight in the little New England village. The street had not changed much—the houses were grayer and the trees taller, perhaps.
As he neared the familiar gate, he saw in the window the face of a silver-haired woman. Was that his mother—his dearly beloved mother of long ago? She turned her head and he was answered.
After all, would it not be better to pass on and away again, rather than to bow that gray head once more in grief and shame?
His steps lagged and he almost passed the gate. Then he drew a long breath, turned sharply, strode up the path and pulled the bell.
The sweet-faced woman opened the door. The man’s dry lips parted, but no sound came, for from an inner room advanced Ethel Barrington with a gray-haired man whose kindly face wore a strangely familiar smile.
“What is it, wife? Is it—Paul?” he asked in tremulous tones.
EPILOGUE
It was long hours afterward that Paul Joseph Weston sat with Ethel alone in the library.
“But yourself, dear—you have not told me yet how you came to be here,” he said.