Chapter I: Will He Come Home?

IN a motor-bus, making its vociferous way along one of the noisiest of main City thoroughfares, sat Dulcie Hurst.

She was used to London clamour, and it hardly disturbed the even current of her thoughts. Omnibuses lumbered by in the opposite direction; cabs went this way and that; private motors, reluctantly compelled to creep, gave forth their asthmatic coughs of warning; yells of "Evening pi-per" pierced the din; but she neither turned her head nor varied her steadfast gaze.

She was close to the door, and one seat at the further end remained empty. All others were occupied.

Two distinct trains of ideas were working behind that strong pale face, at which few looked once without looking a second time.

"Will he be there?" she was asking, as she kept continuous watch for a certain side-street, at the corner of which her brother Norman, clerk in a house of business, was wont to joint the bus which took her back from her day in a city typing-office. Punctuality was not a prime virtue with Norman Hurst, and he often failed to arrive in time.

This returning together from their respective occupations meant a good deal to Dulcie. They were orphans, practically alone in the world; and he, in a sense, was everything to her. She was much to him, but not quite in the same sense.

"Would he be in time?" again she questioned. And below this upper current of her cogitations flowed another. She was saying also—

"'Will he come?'"

But the subject of the second query was a different "he,"—was one who might have been far more to her than even her brother, one whom for ten long years she had not seen, yet never could forget.

During three months past, she had been asking the question and finding no satisfactory reply. But as his face arose in her mind, her own gained a great softness, which made more than one opposite passenger examine her wonderingly.

She was a woman of rather large build, tall, well-proportioned, not stout, but sufficiently substantial for her height; and she looked fully her twenty-eight years. Ten years earlier, she had been nothing less than lovely, regular-featured with radiant colouring and hair of pale gold, a vision that had taken captive the heart of George Kennedy. Her complexion now was uniformly pale, having lost all brilliance, and her hair had darkened into ordinary brown, and she was no longer a "girl," though many keep their girlhood well into the thirties. But she was an attractive woman.

Kennedy had wooed her with all the vehemence of which he was capable, and had failed to win. Then in despair, he had fled from the country, giving dire offence by so doing to his only near relative, the Squire of Apthorne, and apparently sacrificing his own prospects by the act. He told no one the true reason, not even his friend, Norman Hurst; but go he did, despite all opposition.

Dulcie kept his secret, and her own too. Her girlish heart had been won by him from the first, but she would not marry. She had an invalid and suffering mother, dependent on her for constant care, dependent partly on her exertions for daily support; and she also had a brother who needed her at every turn. It might be years before she could count herself free. Hers was a self-sacrificing nature; and she allowed no hint of her real feelings to escape. She would not risk binding Kennedy down to years of waiting, and she received his advances coldly, repelling them with decision.

Whether she would have acted more kindly by speaking out is a question on which judges may differ, but in any case, she acted from high and unselfish motives. If she did make a mistake, which is very doubtful, she made it nobly and unselfishly. Most people's mistakes lie in the other direction.

The Squire of Apthorne, Kennedy's uncle, whom he so direfully offended by his apparently capricious flight to Australia, was believed to have disinherited him in consequence. But when, three months before this date, he died, it was found that he had left everything without reserve to the nephew with whom for ten years he had held no intercourse. The reading of the will took everybody by surprise.

George Kennedy was now a rich man: a land-owner. He would surely return at once to his possessions.

Would he? That was the question. Dulcie was aware that he had declared he never would again set foot in his native land. Would circumstances alter this resolution? And if he did come home, would he remember the past?—Would he still care for her? And if he did care—what then?

Her lips moved with a noiseless "No!" She was tied yet. There was Norman, her only brother, "his" friend. But the "No" was not very emphatic.

Norman was different altogether from herself; a pleasant fellow enough; kind-hearted and generous, when personal comfort was not involved: very much of a favourite generally, but—Dulcie's mind flashed back to her mother's dying injunction—"You will look after Norman, darling—keep him out of mischief—keep him straight. He is so dear—so affectionate—but you know!—you know—!"

Yes, she knew. There had been no need to finish that pathetic little murmur, which had died away into a sigh. She knew only too well. Norman was very affectionate, very loveable, but he had not backbone. He was not staunch. He could be easily turned this way or that. He was a man and she was a woman: he was eight years the elder; but hers was the stronger nature, the firmer will. She had been, to the best of her ability, his guardian angel through years of City life; yet she could not feel that she had altogether succeeded. She was always trying to veil his weaknesses from others; but she was always seeing them herself.

Of late, he had been a greater care than ever. He had not been his usual self. He was worried, moody, fretful, uneasy: less sweet-tempered than of old, more inclined to neglect his work, and to indulge in restless desires for more money, less drudgery. She recognized the presence of some new element in his life, but she could discover nothing definite.

With her mind thus bent upon other matters, it was hardly surprising that she should forget the noise and bustle around.

In the corner opposite, an elderly man sat upright, resting his sunburnt hands upon a stick, and scanning the busy world around with interested eyes—sharp yet not unkindly eyes. He was grey-haired, with an alert, purposeful face; and in age, he perhaps bordered on the sixties. Now and again his glance wandered to Dulcie. For a while she did not notice him, but at length her attention was drawn, and she found herself wondering when and where had she met him before?

He was speaking to another man by his side, and she overheard what passed.

"Can't conceive how any human being can live by choice in this hurly-burly."

"You prefer the country?" the other asked, with a Londoner's polite pity.

"Prefer it! I couldn't exist here! It would land me in a lunatic asylum. I've spent most of my life in the country and hope to end my days there."

"Ah!" the other remarked, with a slight glance at the country cut of the speaker's clothes. "Tastes differ. I'm never happy long out of London."

"One man's meat is another man's poison."

"That's it, I suppose."

"Well, all I say is, give 'me' pure air, let who will live in this choking atmosphere! Give me green fields and country quiet, not this deafening roar."

"Get used to it in time."

"Not I! I wouldn't set up my tent in London, if I was paid to do it."

"Don't you think there is a word to be said on both sides?" asked Dulcie. "One gets the best of some things in London, and the best of other things in the country."

"I'll give up my share of town good things to anybody who likes to take them. Nothing can make up for this!"—And he scanned with a face of disgust the slimy pavements, the thronging foot-passengers, the grimy walls, the ceaseless streams of vehicles. "Plenty of room, and not too many folks for comfort—that's what I'm used to."

They were stopping at the corner where Dulcie's brother should have been, and she lent forward, to meet with disappointment. He had not come.

One passenger jumped out, another stepped in. Still, a vacant seat.

Changing the tone of its racket, the motor-bus went on; and Norman appeared. Though not a very energetic character, he could be active on occasions; and he thought nothing of racing after a motor-bus, to board it when going at high speed. He set off instantly, and Dulcie watched his movements. He had often done the same before.

But, the streets were clothed in a thick film of sticky mud, and he was perhaps over-confident. At the moment of making his spring, his foot slid. He missed his aim, and, instead of landing on the board, fell heavily in the roadway, striking his face against the "tail" of the bus, and crashing with his whole weight upon a doubled right arm.

Shouts on all sides and desperate efforts to draw up saved him from being run over. Before the motor-bus could fully slacken its speed, Dulcie had sprung out, and rushed to his side. With hardly less celerity, the grey-haired man followed, and others came quickly round. They helped him up, but he was dazed, half-stunned, evidently much hurt. Blood poured from a cut in his forehead, and the right arm hung helplessly. When the grey-haired man touched it, he all but swooned.

"Not to a hospital! Take me home," he muttered, over-hearing what was said.

By this time, they had him on the pavement, and the motor-bus was gone on, but the grey-haired man remained behind. A crowd of gazers, inevitable on such occasions, stood around, five or six deep.

"No, I'm not a doctor," the elderly man said, meeting Dulcie's look of appeal. "But I might have been—I went through half the training." Then in a lower voice—"Yes, it's broken. You must have a cab. Where do you live? Stop—I'll tie up his head."

He used a clean handkerchief, supplied by Dulcie, doing the business not ineffectually. Then he helped the injured man into a cab, showing her how to support the arm, and advising her to send at once for a surgeon.

"If you'd like me to come with you—" he added.

"Thank you very much, but I could not think of troubling you. We shall manage quite well," she said cheerfully.

He did not further press his help, but stood looking after the cab as it drove away.

Where had he seen that face before? Not Norman's, but Dulcie's.

He could find no answer to this question. Presently, he dismissed it from his mind, and stepped into the next bus, going the same way.

A second question, often in his mind of late, rose to the surface; and, strangely, it was the same as that of Dulcie, bearing reference to the identical person.

"'Will he come home?'"

And if he—George Kennedy—did come home—"Shall I be allowed to keep my work?" the grey-haired man wanted to know.