It required extreme effort to cross the little yard, to mount the porch. In a moment more he would see his mother. He heard her within, somewhere at the back of the house. Wherefore he tip-toed round to the kitchen door. Here he paused, quaking. A cold sweat broke out all over him. Why was this return so dreadful? He pressed a shaking hand over his heart. How surely he knew he could not deceive his mother! The moment she saw him, after the first flash of joy, she would see the wreck of the boy she had let go to war. Lane choked over his emotion, but he could not spare her. Opening the door he entered.
There she stood at the stove and she looked up at the sound he made. Yes! but stranger than all other changes was the change in her. She was not the mother of his boyhood. Nor was the change alone age or grief or wasted cheek. The moment tore cruelly at Lane's heart. She did not recognize him swiftly. But when she did....
“Oh God!... Daren! My boy!” she whispered.
“Mother!”
CHAPTER II.
His mother divined what he knew. And her embrace was so close, almost fierce in its tenderness, her voice so broken, that Lane could only hide his face over her, and shut his eyes, and shudder in an ecstasy. God alone had omniscience to tell what his soul needed, but something of it was embodied in home and mother.
That first acute moment past, he released her, and she clung to his hands, her face upturned, her eyes full of pain and joy, and woman's searching power, while she broke into almost incoherent speech; and he responded in feeling, though he caught little of the content of her words, and scarcely knew what he was saying.
Then he reeled a little and the kitchen dimmed in his sight. Sinking into a chair and leaning on the table he fought his weakness. He came close to fainting. But he held on to his sense, aware of his mother fluttering over him. Gradually the spell passed.
“Mother—maybe I'm starved,” he said, smiling at her.
That practical speech released the strain and inspired his mother to action. She began to bustle round the kitchen, talking all the while. Lane watched her and listened, and spoke occasionally. Once he asked about his sister Lorna, but his mother either did not hear or chose not to reply. All she said was music to his ears, yet not quite what his heart longed for. He began to distrust this strange longing. There was something wrong with his mind. His faculties seemed too sensitive. Every word his mother uttered was news, surprising, unusual, as if it emanated from a home-world that had changed. And presently she dropped into complaint at the hard times and the cost of everything.
“Mother,” he interrupted, “I didn't blow my money. I've saved nearly a year's pay. It's yours.”
“But, Daren, you'll need money,” she protested.
“Not much. And maybe—I'll be strong enough to go to work—presently,” he said, hopefully. “Do you think Manton will take me back—half days at first?”
“I have my doubts, Daren,” she replied, soberly. “Hattie Wilson has your old job. And I hear they're pleased with her. Few of the boys got their places back.”
“Hattie Wilson!” exclaimed Lane. “Why, she was a kid in the eighth grade when I left home.”
“Yes, my son. But that was nearly three years ago. And the children have sprung up like weeds. Wild weeds!”
“Well! That tousle-headed Wilson kid!” mused Lane. An uneasy conviction of having been forgotten dawned upon Lane. He remembered Blair Maynard's bitter prophecy, which he had been unable to accept.
“Anyway, Daren, are you able to work?” asked his mother.
“Sure,” he replied, lying cheerfully, with a smile on his face. “Not hard work, just yet, but I can do something.”
His mother did not share his enthusiasm. She went on preparing the supper.
“How do you manage to get along?” inquired Lane.
“Lord only knows,” she replied, sombrely. “It has been very hard. When you left home I had only the interest on your father's life insurance. I sold the farm—”
“Oh, no!” exclaimed Lane, with a rush of boyhood memories.
“I had to,” she went on. “I made that money help out for a long time. Then I—I mortgaged this place.... Things cost so terribly. And Lorna had to have so much more.... But she's just left school and gone to work. That helps.”
“Lorna left school!” ejaculated Lane, incredulously. “Why, mother, she was only a child. Thirteen years old when I left! She'll miss her education. I'll send her back.”
“Well, son, I doubt if you can make Lorna do anything she doesn't want to do,” returned his mother. “She wanted to quit school—to earn money. Whatever she was when you left home she's grown up now. You'll not know her.”
“Know Lorna! Why, mother dear, I carried Lorna's picture all through the war.”
“You won't know her,” returned Mrs. Lane, positively. “My boy, these years so short to you have been ages here at home. You will find your sister—different from the little girl you left. You'll find all the girls you knew changed—changed. I have given up trying to understand what's come over the world.”
“How—about Helen?” inquired Lane, with strange reluctance and shyness.
“Helen who?” asked his mother.
“Helen Wrapp, of course,” replied Lane, quickly in his surprise. “The girl I was engaged to when I left.”
“Oh!—I had forgotten,” she sighed.
“Hasn't Helen been here to see you?”
“Let me see—well, now you tax me—I think she did come once—right after you left.”
“Do you—ever see her?” he asked, with slow heave of breast.
“Yes, now and then, as she rides by in an automobile. But she never sees me.... Daren, I don't know what your—your—that engagement means to you, but I must tell you—Helen Wrapp doesn't conduct herself as if she were engaged. Still, I don't know what's in the heads of girls to-day. I can only compare the present with the past.”
Lane did not inquire further and his mother did not offer more comment. At the moment he heard a motor car out in front of the house, a girl's shrill voice in laughter, the slamming of a car-door—then light, quick footsteps on the porch. Lane could look from where he sat to the front door—only a few yards down the short hall. The door opened. A girl entered.