* * * * *

In the far distance a figure emerged out of the gathering dusk—­a man.  Could it be Eddie?—­Alone?

Yes!  It surely was he!  The carriage of the head—­the military cloak—­the walk—­were unmistakable.

But he was alone!—­She grew weak in the knees.—­The shock of joy more nearly unnerved her than had the pain.  She had braced herself to bear the pain.

She recovered her composure and hastened to the door just in time to be folded into the arms of the figure in the cloak.

“Helen?”—­she queried.

“Is dead—­to me,” he answered, with his arms still about her.  “We will have nothing more to say of her except this:  Muddie, I have been in a dream from which, thank God, I am now awake.  In the darkness of my loneliness—­of my misery, of which you alone have the slightest conception, I saw a light which I fancied would lead me to the love for which my soul is starving—­to the sympathy which is sweeter even than love to the broken heart of a man.  I followed it.  I was deceived.  It was no real light, but a mere will o’ the wisp bred in the dank tarn of despair.”

He released her to hang up the cloak in the little entrance hall, then taking her hand, which he raised to his lips, drew her into the sitting room.

“Ah, but it is good to be at home again!” he exclaimed.

His whole manner changed; a mighty weight seemed to roll from his shoulders as he stretched his legs before the fire.  His old merry laugh—­the laugh of Edgar Goodfellow—­rang out as he told “Muddie” of the success of his lecture, in Providence,—­of the great audience and the applause.

“Muddie,” he cried, “my dream of The Stylus will come true yet!  A few more such audiences and the money will be in sight!  And let me add, I am done with literary women—­henceforth literature herself shall be my sole mistress.  I am more than ever convinced that the profession of letters is the only one fit for a man of brain.  There is little money in it, of course, but I’d rather be a poor-devil author earning a bare living than a king.  Beyond a living, what does a man of brain want with money anyhow?—­Muddie, did it ever strike you that all that is really valuable to a man of talent—­especially to a poet—­is absolutely unpurchasable?—­Love, fame, the dominion of intellect, the consciousness of power, the thrilling sense of beauty, the free air of Heaven, exercise of body and mind with the physical and moral health that these bring;—­these, and such as these are really all a poet cares about.  Then why should he mind what the world calls poverty?”

“Why indeed?” echoed happy “Muddie.”  It was so delightful to have her son back at home, and in this hopeful, contented frame, she would have agreed with him in almost any statement he chose to make.

He gave her loving messages from “Annie” and told her in the bright, humorous way which was characteristic of Edgar Goodfellow, of many pleasant little incidents of his journey.  One of the nights to look back upon and to gloat over in memory was this night by the fireside at Fordham cottage with the Mother—­a night of calm and content under the home-roof after tempestuous wandering.