Wallie's first reaction to the news was one of burning anger and
condemnation.

"The blackguard!" he said. "The insufferable cad! To have run away as
he did, and then to let them believe him dead! For that's what they do
believe. It is killing David Livingstone, and as for Elizabeth--She'll
have to be told, mother. He's alive. He's well. And he has deliberately
deserted them all. He ought to be shot."

"You didn't see him, Wallie. I did. He's been through something, I don't
know what. I didn't sleep last night for thinking of his face. It had
despair in it."

"All right," he said, angrily pausing before her. "What do you intend to
do? Let them go on as they are, hoping and waiting; lauding him to the
skies as a sort of superman? The thing to do is to tell the truth."

"But we don't know the truth, Wallie. There's something behind it all."

"Nothing very creditable, be sure of that," he pronounced. "Do you think
it is fair to Elizabeth to let her waste her life on the memory of a man
who's deserted her?"

"It would be cruel to tell her."

"You've got to be cruel to be kind, sometimes," he said oracularly.
"Why, the man may be married. May be anything. A taxi driver! Doesn't
that in itself show that he's hiding from something?"