* * * * * There were moments after Sam came back to Sue, bringing the three children, when he thought he had snatched success out of the very jaws of failure. But the thing from which he had all his life been fleeing was still there. It hid itself in the branches of the trees that lined the New England roads where he went to walk with the two boys. At night it looked down at him from the stars. Perhaps life wanted acceptance from him, but he could not accept. Perhaps his story and his life ended with the home-coming, perhaps it began then. The home-coming was not in itself a completely happy event. There was a house with a fire at night and the voices of the children. In Sam’s breast there was a feeling of something alive, growing. Sue was generous, but she was not now the Sue of the bridle path in Jackson Park in Chicago or the Sue who had tried to remake the world by raising fallen women. On his arrival at her house, on a summer night, coming in suddenly and strangely with the three strange children--a little inclined toward tears and homesickness--she was flustered and nervous. Darkness was coming on when he walked up the gravel path from the gate to the house door with the child Mary in his arms and the two boys, Joe and Tom, walking soberly and solemnly beside him. Sue had just come out at the front door and stood regarding them, startled and a little frightened. Her hair was becoming grey, but as she stood there Sam thought her figure almost boyish in its slenderness. With quick generosity she threw aside the inclination in herself to ask many questions but there was the suggestion of a taunt in the question she did ask. “Have you decided to come back to me and is this your home-coming?” she asked, stepping down into the path and looking not at Sam but at the children. Sam did not answer at once, and little Mary began to cry. That was a help. “They will all be wanting something to eat and a place to sleep,” he said, as though coming back to a wife, long neglected, and bringing with him three strange children were an everyday affair. Although she was puzzled and afraid, Sue smiled and led the way into the house. Lamps were lighted and the five human beings, so abruptly brought together, stood looking at each other. The two boys clung to each other and little Mary put her arms about Sam’s neck and hid her face on his shoulder. He unloosed her clutching hands and put her boldly into Sue’s arms. “She will be your mother now,” he said defiantly, not looking at Sue. * * * * * The evening was got through, blunderingly by himself, Sam thought, and very nobly by Sue.