“George, you are an absolute wonder!” said Alice’s proud voice, faintly echoed from Clark’s Hills.  “Now, shall you cable—­anybody--you know who I mean?”

“I have,” answered the efficient George, “already.”

“Oh, George!  And what will he do?”

“Well, eventually, he’ll come back.”

“Do you think so?  I don’t!”

“Well, anyway, we’ll see.”

“And you’re an angel,” said Mrs. Valentine, finishing the conversation.

Ten days later Warren Gregory walked into George Valentine’s office, and the two men gripped hands without speaking.  That Warren had left for America the day George’s cable reached him there was no need to say.  That he was a man almost sick with empty days and brooding nights there was no need to say.  George was shocked in the first instant of meeting, and found himself, as they talked together, increasingly shocked at the other’s aspect.

Warren was thin, his hair actually showed more gray, there were deep lines about his mouth.  But it was not only that; his eyes had a tired and haunted look that George found sad to see, his voice had lost its old confident ring, and he seemed weary and shaken.  He asked for Alice and the children, and for Rachael and the boys.

“Rachael’s well,” George said.  “She looks—­well, she shows what she’s been through; but she’s very handsome.  And the boys are fine.  We had the whole crowd down as far as Shark Light for a picnic last Sunday.  Rachael has little Breck Pickering down there now; he’s a nice little chap, younger than our Katrina—­Jim’s age.  The youngster is in paradise, sure enough, and putting on weight at a great rate.”

“I didn’t know he was there,” Warren said slowly.  “Like her—­to take him in.  I wish I had been there—­Sunday.  I wish to the Lord that it was all a horrible dream!”

He stopped and sat silent, looking gloomily at the floor, his whole figure, George thought, indicating a broken and shamed spirit.

“Well, Magsie’s settled, at least,” said George after a silence.

“Yes.  That wasn’t what counted, though,” Warren said, as Rachael had said.  “She is settled without my moving; there’s no way in which I can ever make Rachael feel that I would have moved.”  Again his voice sank into silence, but presently he roused himself.  “I’ve come back to work, George,” he said with a quiet decision of manner that George found new and admirable.  “That’s all I can do now.  If she ever forgives me—­but she’s not the kind that forgives.  She’s not weak—­Rachael.  But anyway, I can work.  I’ll go to the old house, for the present, and get things in order.  And you drop a hint to Alice, when she talks to Rachael, that I’ve not got anything to say.  I’ll not annoy her.”