"Thank you, Doctor Cameron. I am setting sail! I thought I was before--I see the difference now. And to-morrow----"

"And to-morrow--where are you going--to-morrow?"

Cameron was ill at ease.

"To a little hotel--I will give you the address in the morning. It is from there that I will set sail."

CHAPTER XXIII

"_No one can travel that road for you, you must travel it for yourself._"

David Martin came into the living room of Ridge House bringing, as it seemed, the Spring with him. He left the door open and sat down. He was in rough clothes; he was brown and rugged. He was building, with his own hands, much of the cabin at Blowing Rock. He had never been more content in his life. He often paused, as he was now doing, and thought of it.

The hard winter's work was over and Martin felt the spring in his blood as he had not felt it in many a year.

Things were going to suit him--and they had had a way of eluding him in the past. Perhaps, he thought, because he had always wanted them just his way.

Somewhere, above stairs, Doris was singing, and Nancy from another part of the house was calling out little joyous remarks.

"Two telegrams in one day, Aunt Doris. Such riches!"

Doris paused in her song long enough to reply:

"Joan may come any day, Nan, dear. It is so like her to act, once she decides."

Martin, sitting by the hearth, reflected upon the injustice of Prodigal Sons and Daughters--but he smiled.

"They don't deserve it--but it's d.a.m.nably true that they get it," he mused, irrelevantly.

"Joan's room is a dream, Nan, come and see it!" called Doris, and Nancy could be heard running and laughing to inspect the Prodigal's quarters.

"It looks divine!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Push that pink dogwood back a little, Aunt Dorrie--make it like a frame around the mirror for the dear's face."

"How's that, Nan?"

"Exactly--right. Aunt Dorrie?"

"Yes, my dear girl."

"I have the dearest plan--I feel that Ken would love it, but I hate to be the one to propose it."

From his armchair Martin smiled more broadly.

"Perhaps I can do it for you, Nan." Doris spoke abstractedly--she was, apparently, giving more thought to the decorations for the returning wanderer than to the plans of the good child who had remained at her post.

"Well, Aunt Doris, I don't want to wait until next winter to be married.

Ken writes that he will have Mrs. Tweksbury safely settled in New York by the first of June----" Emily Tweksbury had fled the influenza and gone to Bermuda only to fall victim to pneumonia. Kenneth Raymond had been summoned, to what was supposed to be her death-bed, but which she indignantly refused to accept as such.

"When women are as old as I, Ken," she had whispered as he bent over her, "they consign them to death-beds too easily. Give me a month, boy, and I'll go back with you."

Kenneth had given her a month, then two weeks extra; he was bringing her back now--a frail old woman, but one in whose heart the determination to live was yet strong.

"But, darling, we'd have to give up the beautiful wedding--Mrs.

Tweksbury could never stand the excitement now, or even this summer."

Doris's voice was more suggestive of attention as she now spoke. Martin waited.

"I know, Aunt Dorrie, but I am sure she would rather have me and Ken married than come to our wedding. Listen, duckie! Suppose, after Joan comes, we plan the dearest little service in the Chapel--I'm sure we could s.n.a.t.c.h Father n.o.ble as he flits by. There would be you and Uncle David and Joan, and perhaps Clive could wrench himself away, and Mary and Uncle Jed--and," a tender pause, "and--Ken and me! We could make the Chapel beautiful with flowers from The Gap--our flowers--and then I could help Ken with Mrs. Tweksbury--for you, Aunt Dorrie, will have Joan."

Martin blinked his eyes. He never admitted a mistiness to the extent of wiping them. He listened for Doris's next words.

"Childie, it sounds enticing and just like you. I will talk it over with Uncle David."

The voices upstairs fell into a silence and Martin got up and paced the room.

A few minutes later Doris came down the stairs and, singing softly, entered the living room.

There was welcome in her eyes; the languor and helpless expression had faded from her face.

"Davey," she said, "I felt the draught--you have left the door open--I knew you were here.

"Oh! Davey, to-day the twenty-year limit seems quite the possible thing.

My dear, my dear, Joan is coming home!"

Martin met Doris midway of the big room. He was startled at the change in her.

"I heard that a telegram had come. It's great news, Doris."

"Queer, isn't it, Davey, how one can brace and bear a good deal while there is the necessity, and then realize the strain only when the need is past? Joan says only 'coming home,' but I know as surely as I ever knew anything that it has been for the best and she is coming gladly to me--coming home! I could not have endured the silence much longer."

Martin put his arm around Doris and led her to the hearth. A mild little fire was crackling cheerfully, rather shyly, between the tall jars of dogwood that seemed to question the necessity of the small blaze.

"Davey, I want to talk to you. There are so many things to say if you are absent twenty-four hours. How goes the cabin?"

"Like magic. It will be livable by June or before. The men like to have me pothering around, and I've discovered that one never really has a house unless he helps build it. I'm going to get Bud down the minute I can put a bed up. And, Doris----"

"Yes, Davey."

"I've been eavesdropping, I've been here a half hour. I heard what Nancy said--let the child have her wish!"

"You feel that way, David? I had hoped to have everything rather splendid--to make up for what I could not do for--Merry."

"All stuff and nonsense! Give the girl her head. She knows her path and will not make mistakes. What she wants is Raymond and her own life.

Nancy is simple and direct; no complications about her. Don't make any for her."