All had failed him, but he would fail no one.
Then he had a strange intense desire to understand the present.

Only a day home--and what colossal enigma! The war had been chaos.

Was this its aftermath?
Had people been rocked on their foundations?
What were they doing--how living--how changing?
He would see, and be grateful for a little time to prove his faith.

He knew he would find the same thing in others that existed in himself.
He would help his mother, and cheer her, and try to revive something of hope in her.

He would bend a keen and patient eye upon Lorna, and take the place of her father, and be kind, loving, yet blunt to her, and show her the inevitable end of this dancing, dallying road.
Perhaps he could influence Helen.