At my shout they halted, paused, and one or two advanced as if to stop me.

But I dashed through their hands into their midst, and saw--God in heaven! What?
The drowned face of my father! Tenderly as women they lifted me from the body.

Gently and with tear-stained faces, they stood around and tried to comfort me.
Reverently, while Joe Roscorla held me in his arms behind, they took up the corpse of him they had known and loved so well, and carried it up the cliffs to Lantrig.

As they lifted the latch and bore the body across the threshold, a yell of maniac laughter echoed through the house to the very roof.
And this was my father's "Welcome Home!" Nay, not all; for as Uncle Loveday started to his feet, the door behind him flew open, and my mother, all in white, with very madness in her eyes, rushed to the corpse, knelt, caught the dead hand, kissed and fondled the dead face, cooing and softly laughing the while with a tender rapture that would have moved hell itself to pity.
In this manner it was that these two fond lovers met..