Then he was distracted from his pondering by tearful and joyful cries, and deeper voices of men.  He looked up to recognize Blair’s mother, father, sister; and men and women whose faces appeared familiar, but whose names he could not recall.  His acute faculty of perception took quick note of a change in Blair’s mother.  Lane turned his gaze away.  The agony of joy and sorrow—­the light of her face—­was more than Lane could stand.  He looked at the sister Margaret—­a tall, fair girl.  She had paint on her cheeks.  She did not see Lane.  Her strained gaze held a beautiful and piercing intentness.  Then her eyes opened wide, her hand went to cover her mouth, and she cried out:  “Oh Blair!—­poor boy!  Brother!”

Only Lane heard her.  The others were crying out themselves as Blair’s gray-haired mother received him into her arms.  She seemed a proud woman, broken and unsteady.  Red Payson’s grip on Lane’s arm told what that scene meant to him.  How pitiful the vain effort of Blair’s people to hide their horror!  Presently mother and sister and women relatives fell aside to let the soldier boy meet his father.  This was something that rang the bells in Lane’s heart.  Men were different, and Blair faced his father differently.  The wild boy had come home—­the scapegoat of many Middleville escapades had returned—­the ne’er-do-well sought his father’s house.  He had come home to die.  It was there in Blair’s white face—­the dreadful truth.  He wore a ribbon on his breast and he leaned on a crutch.  For the instant, as father and son faced each other, there was something in Blair’s poise, his look of an eagle, that carried home a poignant sense of his greatness.  Lane thrilled with it and a lump constricted his throat.  Then with Blair’s ringing “Dad!” and the father’s deep and broken:  “My son!  My son!” the two embraced.

In a stifling moment more it seemed, attention turned on Red Payson, who stood nearest.  Blair’s folk were eager, kind, soft-spoken and warm in their welcome.

Then it came Lane’s turn, and what they said or did he scarcely knew, until Margaret kissed him.  “Oh, Dare!  I’m so glad to see you home.”  Tears were standing in her clear blue eyes.  “You’re changed, but—­not—­not so much as Blair.”

Lane responded as best he could, and presently he found himself standing at the curb, watching the car move away.

“Come out to-morrow,” called back Blair.

The Maynard’s car was carrying his comrades away.  His first feeling was one of gladness—­the next of relief.  He could be alone now—­alone to find out what had happened to him, and to this strange Middleville.  An old negro wearing a blue uniform accosted Lane, shook hands with him, asked him if he had any baggage.  “Yas sir, I sho knowed you, Mistah Dare Lane.  But you looks powerful bad.”