He caught Suzette's eye. She was blushing too, blushing a very vivid pink--rather a foolish pink somehow. He felt that both he and Suzette were looking very silly. For quite a long time, as it seemed, he looked at Suzette before he looked at the little girls. After that there was, or seemed to be, another long silence while the little girls looked first at him, then at Suzette, then at one another. Tom stood there through it all--in the doorway, blushing. The next moment all the three were upon him, clinging to his hands and his coat, kissing him, crying out their gladness in little excited exclamations, the two elder taking care to give Vera a fair chance to get at him, Vera insisting that the chance was not a fair one, all the three dragging him to an armchair, and sitting him down in it. Two of them got on his knees, and Lucy stood by his side with her arm round his neck. "My dears!" Tom muttered, and found he could say no more. His eyes met Suzette Bligh's. She was standing by the table, looking on, and her eyes were misty. "See how they love you, Mr. Courtland!" she said. Yes! And he had forsaken them, and the bandage was about Sophy's head. "You won't go away again, will you?" implored Lucy. "No, I shan't go away again." "And Suzette'll stay too, won't she?" urged Vera. "I hope she will, indeed!" "You will, Suzette?" "Yes, dear." "We shall be happy," said Sophy softly, with a note of wonder in her voice. It really seemed strange to have the prospect of being happy--permanently, comfortably, without fear; the prospect of happiness, not snatched at intervals, not broken by terror, but secure and without apprehension. Tom Courtland pressed his little children to him. Where were the reproaches he had imagined, where the shame he had feared? They were annihilated by love and swallowed up in gladness. "We do love you so!" whispered Lucy. Vera actually screamed in happiness. "Oh, Vera!" said Suzette, rather shocked.