He is alone now. He stands fingering the fishing-rods tenderly, then wanders back into the ingle-nook. In the room we could scarcely see him, for it has gone slowly dark there, a grey darkness, as if the lamp, though still burning, was becoming unable to shed light. Through the greyness we see him very well beyond it in the glow of the fire. He sits on the settle and tries to read his paper. He breaks down. He is a pitiful lonely man. In the silence something happens. A well-remembered voice says, ‘Father.’ Mr. Don looks into the greyness from which this voice comes, and he sees his son. We see no one, but we are to understand that, to Mr. Don, Dick is standing there in his habit as he lived. He goes to his boy. ‘Dick!’ ‘I have come to sit with you for a bit, father.’ It is the gay, young, careless voice. ‘It’s you, Dick; it’s you!’ ‘It’s me all right, father. I say, don’t be startled, or anything of that kind. We don’t like that.’ ‘My boy!’ Evidently Dick is the taller, for Mr. Don has to look up to him. He puts his hands on the boy’s shoulders. ‘How am I looking, father?’ ‘You haven’t altered, Dick.’ ‘Rather not. It’s jolly to see the old studio again!’ In a cajoling voice, ‘I say, father, don’t fuss. Let us be our ordinary selves, won’t you?’ ‘I’ll try, I’ll try. You didn’t say you had come to sit with _me_, Dick? Not with _me_!’ ‘Rather!’ ‘But your mother----’ ‘It’s you I want.’ ‘Me?’ ‘We can only come to one, you see.’ ‘Then why me?’ ‘That’s the reason.’ He is evidently moving about, looking curiously at old acquaintances. ‘Hello, here’s your old jacket, greasier than ever!’ ‘Me? But, Dick, it is as if you had forgotten. It was your mother who was everything to you. It can’t be you if you have forgotten that. I used to feel so out of it; but, of course, you didn’t know.’ ‘I didn’t know it till lately, father; but heaps of things that I didn’t know once are clear to me now. I didn’t know that you were the one who would miss me most; but I know now.’ Though the voice is as boyish as ever, there is a new note in it of which his father is aware. Dick may not have grown much wiser, but whatever he does know now he seems to know for certain. ‘_Me_ miss you most? Dick, I try to paint just as before. I go to the club. Dick, I have been to a dinner-party. I said I wouldn’t give in.’ ‘We like that.’ ‘But, my boy----’ Mr. Don’s arms have gone out to him again. Dick evidently wriggles away from them. He speaks coaxingly. ‘I say, father, let’s get away from that sort of thing.’ ‘That is so like you, Dick! I’ll do anything you ask.’ ‘Then keep a bright face.’ ‘I’ve tried to.’ ‘Good man! I say, put on your old greasy; you are looking so beastly clean.’