“I will—­I will—­and it is such a relief to have no pain and to see you.”

Then as he asked about Leila and the mill work, the younger doctor came in and said, “Time is up, Mrs. Penhallow.”

“What—­already, Tom?”

“But I want to know more,” said the Colonel.  “Wasn’t there a rummage-sale—­”

“Yes; but now you must let Mrs. Penhallow go.  You are mending daily.  To-morrow Mrs. Penhallow may come again, and there will be to-morrow, and many happy to-morrows.”  She went out and downstairs singing in a low sweet voice—­a long lost habit.

If to watch with an aching heart the hopeless decay of a mind be the most distressing of all human trials, surely there can be few greater joys than to see a disordered intellect emerge day by day into possession of its long lost capacities.  James Penhallow was soon able to sign a power of attorney enabling John to reconstruct the old partnership with his own name added to the firm.

Very soon town and county shared in the growth of prosperity which followed the war.  Rivers was the only one who was not what his friends desired, and never was his melancholy mood more noticeable.

The master of Grey Pine was, of course, many months in recovering his normal state of mind.  The man’s bodily strength had not been seriously impaired, and the return of his natural gaiety and his eager resumption one by one of his old habits filled his home with that cheerfulness which is the relieving and precious gift of convalescence.  Penhallow’s remembrances of the war were rapidly recovered as he talked to John, but much of his recent life was buried in the strange graveyard of memory, which gave up no reminding ghosts of what all who loved the man feared might haunt him.

When satisfied of the certainty of his uncle’s recovery John Penhallow hurt by Leila’s continual coldness and seeing for it no reasonable explanation gave more and more time to the mills in which the family fortunes were so seriously concerned.  On the first of September he was glad to go away on business which carried him to several of the large cities, and resulted in orders which would keep the works busy for many months.  He no longer wrote to Leila, nor did he expect letters from her.  He considered any nearer relation than friendship to be at an end, but to lose that also seemed to him a quite too needlessly cruel loss, and now for the first time on returning he approached Grey Pine without pleasure.  He had telegraphed to have a horse sent to meet him at Westways Crossing, that he might ride on to the mills after seeing his uncle.

Having taken the night train, it was about noon when Leila saw him coming up the avenue.  She went forward to the roadside and as he sat in the saddle shook his hand, saying, “I am sorry you were delayed, John.  You will be disappointed to know that Uncle Jim and Aunt Ann left home yesterday.”  She wished that he had not quite so clearly shown the limits of his regret, as he said quietly, “Well, I shall miss them, of course.”