"I've got the fire going," she said. "And I'll run up now and get your
clothes. I--had put them away." Her voice broke a little. "You see,
we--You can change in your laboratory. Richard, can't you? If you go
upstairs he'll hear you."
He reached up and caught her hand. That touch, too, of the nearest to
a mother's hand that he had known, he meant to carry away with him. He
could not speak.
She bustled away, into her bright kitchen first, and then with happy
stealth to the store-room. Her very heart was singing within her. She
neither thought nor reasoned. Dick was back, and all would be well.
If she had any subconscious anxieties they were quieted, also
subconsciously, by confidence in the men who were fighting his battle
for him, by Walter Wheeler and Bassett and Harrison Miller. That Dick
himself would present any difficulty lay beyond her worst fears.
She had been out of the room only twenty minutes when she returned to
David and prepared to break her great news. At first she thought he was
asleep. He was lying back with his eyes closed and his hands crossed on
the prayer-book. But he looked up at her, and was instantly roused to
full attention by her face.
"You've had some news," he said.
"Yes, David. There's a little news. Don't count too much on it. Don't
sit up. David, I have heard something that makes me think he is alive.
Alive and well."
He made a desperate effort and controlled himself.
"Where is he?"
She sat down beside him and took his hand between hers.
"David," she said slowly, "God has been very good to us. I want to tell
you something, and I want you to prepare yourself. We have heard
from Dick. He is all right. He loves us, as he always did. And--he is
downstairs, David."
He lay very still and without speaking. She was frightened at first,
afraid to go on with her further news. But suddenly David sat up in bed
and in a full, firm voice began the Te Deum Laudamus. "We praise thee,
O God: we acknowledge thee to be the Lord. All the earth doth worship
thee, the Father everlasting."
He repeated it in its entirety. At the end, however, his voice broke.
"O Lord, in thee have I trusted--I doubted Him, Lucy," he said.
Dick, waiting at the foot of the stairs, heard that triumphant paean of
thanksgiving and praise and closed his eyes.