CHAPTER XXXI.
It would be delightful to describe the happy days at Moorlands during St.George's convalescence, when the love-life of Harry and Kate was one long, uninterrupted, joyous dream.

When mother, father, and son were again united--what a meeting was that, once she got her arms around her son's neck and held him close and wept her heart out in thankfulness!--and the life of the old-time past was revived--a life softened and made restful and kept glad by the lessons all had learned.
And it would be more delightful still to carry the record of these charming hours far into the summer had not St.George, eager to be under his own roof in Kennedy Square, declared he could stay no longer.
Not that his welcome had grown less warm.

He and his host had long since unravelled all their difficulties, the last knot having been cut the afternoon the colonel, urged on by Harry's mother--his disappointment over his sons's coldness set at rest by her pleadings--had driven into town for Harry in his coach, as has been said, and swept the whole party, including St.George, out to Moorlands.
Various unrelated causes had brought about this much-to-be-desired result, the most important being the news of the bank's revival, which Harry, in his mad haste to overtake Kate, had forgotten to tell his uncle, and which St.George learned half an hour later from Pawson, together with a full account of what the colonel had done to bring about the happy result--a bit of information which so affected Temple that, when the coach with the colonel on the box had whirled up, he, weak as he was, had struggled to the front door, both hands held out, in welcome.
"Talbot--old fellow," he had said with a tear in his voice, "I have misunderstood you and I beg your pardon.

You've behaved like a man, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart!" At which the stern old aristocrat had replied, as he took St.George's two hands in his: "Let us forget all about it, St.George.I made a damned fool of myself.

We all get too cocky sometimes." Then there had followed--the colonel listening with bated breath--St.
George's account of Kate's confession and Harry's sudden exit, Rutter's face brightening as it had not done for years when he learned that Harry had not yet returned from the Seymours', the day's joy being capped by the arrival of Dr.Teackle, who had given his permission with an "All right--the afternoon is fine and the air will do Mr.Temple a world of good," and so St.George was bundled up and the reader knows the rest.
Later on--at Moorlands of course--the colonel, whose eyes were getting better by the day and Gorsuch whose face was now one round continuous smile, got to work, and had a heart-to-heart--or rather a pocket-to-pocket talk--which was quite different in those days from what it would be now--after which both Kate and Harry threw to the winds all thoughts of Rio and the country contiguous thereto, and determined instead to settle down at Moorlands.