At the first click of the latch Mrs. Lister screamed, then held her hand across her lips. Nervous strength had forsaken her. But she gathered herself together and Dr. Lister, watching her, failed to see the entrance of the prodigal. Her form stiffened, the distress on her face altered to a stern and savage disapproval. She looked suddenly and uncannily like the portrait of the austere old man above her head. The night's vigil seemed to have removed the plumpness which disguised her physical resemblance to her father and her indignation destroyed the placid good nature which was her usual mood. She felt no weak impulse to throw herself upon her son's shoulder or to reinforce her maternal influence by any appeal to his affection. When he entered, bedraggled, wet, black with railroad dust, he saw, first of all, his mother, sitting like a judge before him. He saw his father also, but his father seemed as usual a little indifferent to him and his needs, and even to this adventure. "Mother!" he cried from the doorway. Mrs. Lister did not answer. That the boy was amazed, that he could not account for their waiting presence was evident, but she did not help him to straighten out the puzzling situation in which he found himself. "You have been up all night!" Mrs. Lister allowed the evident truth of this assertion to serve for an answer. She felt as though she could never speak, as though her throat were paralyzed, her tongue dead in her mouth. A lover, hearing his mistress explain her faithlessness, could have been no more powerless to express the sense of injury within him. There was a great gulf between her and her son, who till this moment had seemed almost as much a part of her as he was in the months preceding his birth. Richard sat down inside the door. "You didn't get my message, then?" Still she did not speak. "What message, Richard?" asked Dr. Lister. "We have had no message. We only knew that you vanished yesterday after breakfast." "I found I had to go," explained Richard. Then he paused. His words sounded as strange to him as to his parents. "I wrote a note telling you where I was going and I fastened it to my pincushion where I was certain mother would find it. I missed the train home, and I came on the freight and it was delayed. I tried to telegraph, but the wires were down. Didn't you find my note, mother?" "There was no note on your pincushion," said Mrs. Lister in a hollow voice. Richard turned and ran up the steps. The two waiting below could hear him throw up the blinds. He descended in his fashion, three steps at a time, carrying two bits of paper in his hand. "There, mother, they were under the edge of the bookcase! They must have blown there. I am so sorry that you have been anxious." His voice trembled, his father saw that he was almost exhausted. Mrs. Lister did not lift the papers from her lap where he laid them. In the confusion of her mind, one intention was firm. She would not learn his excuse from any paper.