"Won't you tell me something of yourself, how you came to live here alone, and your name, perhaps? I do not mean to presume, but I am deeply interested." "There is never presumption in kindliness and sympathy," answered the Patriarch. "But my name and story is buried in the past--perhaps when I am gone those who care to know may know. I have not hurt you by refusing to answer?" "No, indeed!" said Madison politely to himself. "The element of mystery is one of the best drawing cards I know--it's got Needley going strong. Far, far be it from me to tear the veil asunder. I mentioned it only as a feeler." But upon the slate he wrote: "Far from being hurt, I respect your silence. But your eyes--you were to tell me about them." The Patriarch's face saddened suddenly as he read the words. "I have made no secret of it," he wrote. "I have been going blind for nearly a year now. The end, I am afraid, is very near--within a few days, perhaps even to-morrow. I think I should not mind it much myself, for I am very old and have not a great while longer to live in any case, but for the time that is left it will mar my usefulness. I have been able to help the people here and they have come to depend upon me--that is my life. I trust I am not boastful if I say my greatest joy has been in helping others." He had come to the bottom of the slate and held it out for Madison to read; then wiped it off, and went on: "I have dreamed often of a wider field, of reaching out to help the thousands beyond this little town--but I have realized that it could be no more than a dream. I have been successful here because the people believe in me and have unquestioning faith in me--to go outside amongst strangers would only have been to be received as a charlatan and faker, or as a poor deaf and dumb fool at best." Madison took the slate. "But if these thousands of others came to you--what then?" The Patriarch's face glowed. "It would be a wondrous joy," he wrote. "Too wondrous to dwell upon--because it could never be. If they came I could help them, for their very coming would be an evidence of faith--and faith alone is necessary. Think of the joy of helping so many others--it is the fulness of life. But let us not dream any more, friend Madison." "Of course," communed Madison, studying the illumined face, "he's slightly touched in his upper story on the faith stunt; but he's in dead earnest, and he's got the brotherhood-of-man bug bad. Come to think of it, Hiram did say something about his 'sight failing,' but I didn't think it was anything like this. If he's going to go finally blind in, say, a week, perhaps it would be just as well to postpone the opening night until he does." Madison took the slate. "Stranger things than that have happened," he wrote. "I never heard of you before, yet I am one of the thousands beyond this little town and I am here--why not the others?" The Patriarch shook his head sadly. "It is but a dream," he wrote.