It was a very simple good-by, but yet they were torn by it in a way they had hardly expected. She with her worn face and tired eyes was all there was to hold him to life--she and a terrible, impersonal sense of duty which seemed to frighten him almost. As he watched the drab figure disappear among the crowd on the long platform he couldn't help wondering....
But it was no use wondering. He must set his teeth and get his head down and try to stick it no matter what the dark fates had in store.
The Corporal even at his best was not a great hand at writing letters. And the series he wrote from France did not flatter his powers. Really they told hardly anything and that which they did tell might have been far more vividly rendered. Still in the eyes of Melia they were precious; and they did something to soften months of loneliness and toil.
One other gleam there was in that sore time; a fitful one, no doubt, and the ray it cast upon her life so dubious, that, all things considered, it meant small comfort. Yet, perhaps, it may have been wrong not to accept this doubtful boon more gratefully.
One morning, about a fortnight after Bill's departure for France, her father paid one of his periodical visits to Love Lane. Since W. Hollis Fruiterer had taken a turn for the better he was content with a monthly survey instead of a weekly one in order to assure himself that the enterprise was shipshape and its affairs in order.
Melia's reception of her father was invariably cool. She had a proud, unyielding nature, and Josiah's tardy concession to the sternness of the times even if it had thawed the ice a little had not really melted it. Neither was quite at ease in the presence of the other; in both was a smoldering resentment and the spirit of unforgiveness.
The books, on inspection, proved to be in very fair order. They were carefully and neatly kept and, in comparison with the state of affairs before a business man came on the scene to direct them, they showed a refreshing change for the better. The accounts had been made up to the half year. And as a result of eight months trading under new conditions there was a clear profit of forty-five pounds after a full allowance for expenses.