Chapter III

He wrote to Eleanor that night, telling her that he would capitulate. Immediately he had settled about the flat and had arranged for his withdrawal from the office of the _Sensation_, he would return to Ballyards. He would write no more books!... In the morning, there was a letter from Eleanor. She could hold out no longer. If he would come and fetch her and the little John, she would do whatever he asked of her. She loved him so much that she could not keep up this pretence of strength!...

He laughed to himself as he read her letter. "She wrote before I did," he said. "I suppose I've won. I suppose I held out longer than she did ... but I don't feel that I've gained anything!"

The copies of _Hearts of Controversy_ were lying where he had left them on the previous night. "I don't care what the papers say about them," he said to himself picking one of them up. "What's a book anyway when I've got Eleanor!"

He was able to arrange the sale of his furniture to the sub-tenant and get his release from the _Sensation_ in less than a week, and he wired to Eleanor to say that he was coming home and would arrive at Ballyards on Sunday. "I'm going home with my tail between my legs," he said to himself, as he walked down the gangway from the Liverpool boat on to the quay at Belfast. He was too early for the Ballyards train, and he went for a walk to fill the time of waiting. He passed the restaurant where Maggie Carmichael had been employed, and saw that a new name was on the lintel of the door. "Well, I hope she's happy with her peeler!" he said to himself. He went on, and presently found himself before the Theatre Royal, and when he glanced at the playbills, he saw that a Shakespearian Company were in possession of it. _Romeo and Juliet_ had been performed on Saturday night, and he remembered the line that had sustained him after his love-making with Maggie Carmichael:

_If love be rough with you, be rough with love._

"How can you?" he said aloud. "You can't, no matter what it does to you!"

He went at last to the station and caught his train to Ballyards. Eleanor was waiting on the platform for him. She did not speak when he arrived. She ran to him and put her arms about him and hugged him and cried over him. "My dear, my dear!" she said when she had recovered herself. He took her arm and led her out of the station, and they walked home together.

"It was terrible." she said. "I had to fight hard to keep myself from going to you. We've been very foolish, John, haven't we?"

He nodded his head.

They entered the house by the side-door and went into the kitchen where Mrs. MacDermott was preparing the mid-day meal. She waited for him to speak to her.

"I've come home, mother!" he said, going to her and kissing her.

"I'm thankful glad, son!" she replied.