"Can we see _him_?" asked Mrs. Thornton wistfully. "Oh, I would like to kneel at his feet and pour out my gratitude. But see how all these people go no nearer than that row of trees, as though love or fear or reverence kept them from going further, as though it were almost forbidden, holy ground, as though they were held back by an invisible barrier in spite of themselves." "True," said Madison; "and I sense that very thing myself--all men must sense it after what has taken place, all must feel the presence of a power too majestic, too full of awe for the mind to grasp. This faith"--he threw out his hands in an impotent gesture--"we can only accept it unquestioningly, as a mighty thing, an actual, living, existent thing, even if we cannot fully understand. But I feel that with what we have in mind we have a right to go there now--and we should take that little lad who was cured as well--and his parents, they should come too." "And shall we see _him_?" Mrs. Thornton asked again tensely. "Why, I do not know," Madison replied; "but at least we shall see his niece, Miss Vail, and it is with her in any case that we would have to discuss the plan, for the Patriarch, you know, is deaf and dumb and blind." "You know them, don't you?" Thornton inquired. Madison smiled, a little strangely, a little deprecatingly. "If one can speak of 'knowing' such as they--yes," he answered. "When I came two weeks ago, the Patriarch was not wholly blind, and he was very kind to me. I learned to love the gentle soul of the man, and in a way, skeptical though I was, I felt his power--but I never realized until this afternoon how stupendous, how immeasurable it was." "Let us go to the cottage, then," said Thornton. "Naida, dear, let me help you; it is quite a little distance and--" She put out her hands in a happy, intimate way to hold him off. "You can't realize it, Robert, can you? That dear, practical business head of yours makes it even harder for you than it is for me--and I can hardly realize it myself. But I _am_ cured, dear, and I'm well and strong, and I don't need any help--why, Robert, I am going to help you now, instead of always being a source of worry and anxiety to you. Come, let us go." "If you will walk slowly," suggested Madison, "I'll speak to the little Holmes boy and his parents, and bring them with us." He moved away as he spoke--in the direction of a racking cough, that rose above the confused, murmuring, whispering, shaken voices on every hand; and in a little knot of people he was, for a moment, pressed close against Pale Face Harry. "All right," whispered Pale Face Harry, "it's in your pocket now--but, say, no more runs like that for me, I'm all in. I thought sure I was cured myself--I hadn't coughed for--"