The ride home was one that can be understood in its depths only by those who have been similarly circumstanced. The train seemed to creep. The minutes were like hours. The stops seemed to be interminable, and every mile nearer home seemed to be proportionately longer than the previous one. He reached the city at dark. The store was closed. He had expected to find Manning there, but he suddenly remembered that he had not telegraphed to him the time of his arrival. As he neared his home the first glance showed him there was a change. The lower part of the house was in darkness, and only a dim light shone in the front chamber, which was but rarely occupied.
“They have laid her there,” he said to himself, and all his soul cried within him in anguish. His poor wife! How she must have suffered, to have gone through all this alone! What a brute he was to go away Monday, when he ought to have known, and did know, that something dreadful was upon them! He reached the door; it was fastened; he would go to the other side and enter quietly. But some one heard his step, and, opening the door, called him back.
“Is it Mr. Morgan?” The voice was that of a neighbor.
“Yes.” He passed in, expecting to see or hear his wife. The friend closed the door and turned to him.
“Have you heard—,” she began.
“I have heard nothing; is Mary—,” he broke down. The door beside him opened.
“Oh, papa!”
Give him air! What mystery was this?
“Mary, is it you? Are you alive? Why, I thought—I feared—Oh, darling, is it you?”
Yes, it was Mary. Oh, thank God! Thank God!