At last David stood apart in the stone-flagged hall of the Vicarage.  His abundant hair was rumpled, his face was stained by other people’s tears, his collar, tie, dress disordered, and his heart touched.  It was a rare experience in his twenty-four years of life—­he guessed that should be his age—­to find himself really taken on trust, really desired and loved.  Honoria’s friendship was a pure and precious thing, but in its very purity carefully restrained.  Praddy’s kindness, and the office boy’s worship had both been gratifying to Vivie’s self-esteem, but both had to be kept at bay.  Somehow the love of a father and of an old nurse were of a different category to these other contacts.

All these thoughts passed through David’s brain in thirty seconds.  He shook himself, straightened himself, smiled adequately, and tried to live up to the situation.

“Dear father!  And dear ...  Nannie! (A bold but successful deduction).  How sweet of you both—­greeting me like this.  I’ve come home a very different David to the one that left you—­what was it?  Five—­six years ago?—­to go to Mr. Praed’s studio.  I’ve learnt a lot in the interval.  But I’m so sick of the past, I don’t want to talk about it more than I can help, and I’ve been in very queer health since I got ill—­and—­wounded—­in—­South Africa.  My memory has gone for many things—­I’m afraid I’ve forgotten all my Welsh, Nannie, but it’ll soon come back, that is, if I may stay here a bit.”  (Exclamations from father and nurse:  “This is your home, Davy-bach!”) “I’m not going to stay too long this time because I’ve got my living to earn in London....

“Did you never hear anything about me from ...  South Africa ... or the War Office—­or—­your old college chum, Mr. Gardner?”

“I heard—­my own dear boy—­” said the Revd.  Howel, again taking him in his arms in a renewed spasm of affection.  “I heard you were wounded and very ill in the camp hospital at Colesberg.  It was a nursing sister, I think, who sent me the information.  I wrote several times to the War Office, my letters were acknowledged, that was all.  Then Sam Gardner wrote to me from Margate and said his son had been in the same hospital with you.  Later on I saw in a Bristol paper that this hospital—­Colesberg—­had fallen into the hands of the Boers and the Cape insurgents.  Then I said to myself ’My poor boy’s been taken prisoner’ and as time went on, ’My poor boy’s dead, or he would have written to me.’”

Here the Revd.  Howel stopped to wipe his eyes and blow his nose.  David touched through his armour of cynicism, said—­Nannie retiring to prepare the evening meal—­“Father dear, though I don’t want to refer too often to the past, I behaved disgracefully some time ago and the Colonies seemed my only chance of setting myself right.  I did manage to get away from the Boers, but I had not the courage to present myself before you till I had done something to regain your good opinion.  I have got now good employment in London and I’m even reading up Law.  We will talk of that by and bye but I tell you now—­from my heart—­I am a different David to the one you knew, and you shall never regret taking me back.”