“Well, lad, supposing you read what the editor has to say?” was McClintock’s suggestion, when the frolic was over.

“You read it, Ruth.  You’re luck.”

“Aye!” was McClintock’s inaudible affirmative.  Luck.  The boy would never know just how lucky he was.  Ruth read: 

    DEAR SIR: 

    “We are delighted to accept these four stories,
    particularly ‘The Man Who Could Not Go Home.’  We shall be
    pleased to see more of your work.

“‘The Man Who Could Not Go Home.’  Why,” said Ruth, “you did not read that to us.”

“Wanted to see if I could turn out one all on my own,” replied Spurlock, looking at McClintock, who nodded slightly.  “It was the story of a man, so to speak, who had left his vitals in his native land and wandered strange paths emptily.  But never mind that.  Come along home, Ruth.  I’m burning to get to work.”

After all those former bitter failures, this cup was sweet, even if there was the flavour of irony.  At least, he would always be able to take care of Ruth.  The Dawn Pearl; how well they had named her!  The pearl without price—­his and not his!

He took her arm and drew it under his; and together they went down the veranda steps.  Ruth’s arm trembled and her step faltered, but he was too far away in thought to be observant.  He saw rifts in clouds—­sunshine.  The future was not so black.  All the money he earned—­serving McClintock and the muse—­could be laid away.  Then, in a few years, he and Ruth might fare forth in comfort and security.  After five or six years it would not be difficult to hide in Italy or in France.  No; the future was not so dark; there was a bit of dawn visible.  If this success continued, it would be easy to assume the name of Taber.  Ruth could not very well object, since an air of distinction would go with Taber.

Suddenly he felt Ruth swing violently away from him, and he wheeled to learn the cause.

He beheld a tall gaunt man, his brown face corrugated like a winter’s road, grim, stony.  His gangling body was clothed in rusty twill trousers and a long black seersucker coat, buttoned to the throat, around which ran a collar which would have marked him the world over as a man of the Word.  His hand rested heavily and cruelly upon Ruth’s shoulder.

“So, wanton, I have found you!”

“Wanton!  Why, you infernal liar!” cried Spurlock, striking at the arm.  But the free arm of the stranger hit him a flail-like blow on the chest and sent him sprawling into the yielding sand.  Berserker, Spurlock rose, head down, and charged.

“Hoddy, Hoddy!...  No, no!  This is my father!” warned Ruth.

Spurlock halted in his tracks.  “But what does he mean by calling you a wanton?—­you, my wife?”

Enschede’s hand slipped from his daughter’s shoulder.  The iron slipped from his face, leaving it blank with astonishment.  “Your wife?”

“His lawful wife,” said Ruth, with fine dignity.