Within a fortnight of having reached his
Mecca--the Front, he was back in England in the--to him--amazing guise of
wounded hero. But he had sent for none of his old friends for he was
still ashamed. After the Armistice he had rushed through England on his
way to Australia, putting in a few days with a Colonel and Mrs. Crofton,
with whom he had been thrown in Egypt. More to do his host a kindness
than for any other reason, Radmore had sent his godson, Timothy Tosswill,
a pedigree puppy, from the queer little Essex manor-house where the
Croftons were then making a rather futile attempt to increase their
slender means by breeding terriers.
The days had slipped by there very pleasantly, for Radmore liked his
taciturn host, and Mrs. Crofton was very pretty--an agreeable playfellow
for a rich and lonely man. So it was that when it came to the point he
had not cared to look up any of the people associated with his early
youth.
But now he was going to see them--almost had he forced himself upon them.
And the thought of going home to Old Place shook and stirred him to the
heart.
To-day he felt quite queerly at a loose end. This perhaps, partly because
the lately widowed Mrs.
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