Were her tired eyes playing her tricks?-the white bricks of Tara blurred and indistinct.
Home!
Home!
The dear white walls, the windows with the fluttering curtains, the wide verandas—were they all there ahead of her, in the gloom?
Or did the darkness mercifully conceal such a horror as the MacIntosh house?
The avenue seemed miles long and the horse, pulling stubbornly at her hand, plopped slower and slower.
Eagerly her eyes searched the darkness.
The roof seemed to be intact.
Could it be—could it be—? No, it wasn’t possible.
War stopped for nothing, not even Tara, built to last five hundred years.
It could not have passed over Tara.
Then the shadowy outline did take form.
She pulled the horse forward faster.
The white walls did show there through the darkness.
And untarnished by smoke.
Tara had escaped!
Home!
She dropped the bridle and ran the last few steps, leaped forward with an urge to clutch the walls themselves in her arms.
Then she saw a form, shadowy in the dimness, emerging from the blackness of the front veranda and standing at the top of the steps.
Tara was not deserted.
Someone was home!
A cry of joy rose to her throat and died there.
The house was so dark and still and the figure did not move or call to her.
What was wrong?
What was wrong?
Tara stood intact, yet shrouded with the same eerie quiet that hung over the whole stricken countryside.
Then the figure moved.
Stiffly and slowly, it came down the steps.
“Pa?” she whispered huskily, doubting almost that it was he.
“It’s me—Katie Scarlett.
I’ve come home.”
Gerald moved toward her, silent as a sleepwalker, his stiff leg dragging.
He came close to her, looking at her in a dazed way as if he believed she was part of a dream.
Putting out his hand, he laid it on her shoulder.
Scarlett felt it tremble, tremble as if he had been awakened from a nightmare into a half-sense of reality.
“Daughter,” he said with an effort.
“Daughter.”
Then he was silent.
Why—he’s an old man! thought Scarlett.
Gerald’s shoulders sagged.
In the face which she could only see dimly, there was none of the virility, the restless vitality of Gerald, and the eyes that looked into hers had almost the same fear-stunned look that lay in little Wade’s eyes.
He was only a little old man and broken.
And now, fear of unknown things seized her, leaped swiftly out of the darkness at her and she could only stand and stare at him, all the flood of questioning dammed up at her lips.
From the wagon the faint wailing sounded again and Gerald seemed to rouse himself with an effort.
“It’s Melanie and her baby,” whispered Scarlett rapidly.
“She’s very ill—I brought her home.”
Gerald dropped his hand from her arm and straightened his shoulders.
As he moved slowly to the side of the wagon, there was a ghostly semblance of the old host of Tara welcoming guests, as if Gerald spoke words from out of shadowy memory.
“Cousin Melanie!”
Melanie’s voice murmured indistinctly.