. C :
 
 <
 
 THE MIRACLE MAN
 
 THE 
 
 MIRACLE MAN 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANK L. PACKARD 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN, ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH SCENES 
 FROM THE PHOTOPLAY 
 PRESENTED BY MAYFLOWER 
 PHOTOPLAY CORPORATION. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP 
 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1914 
 BY FRANK L. PACKARD
 
 TO 
 
 NEARLY 
 EVERYBODY 
 
 2052617
 
 CHAPTBR PAGE 
 
 I THE "Roosr" . . . :.. . 9 
 
 II A NEW CULT 23 
 
 III NEEDLEY . . . 43 
 
 IV THE PATRIARCH 52 
 
 V A STRANGE CONVERSATION . . . >. .... 62 
 
 VI OFFICIALLY ENDORSED ..... , : ... 79 
 
 VII THE PATRIARCH'S GRAND NIECE ...... 87 
 
 VIII IN WHICH THE BAIT Is NIBBLED ...... 97 
 
 IX THE PILGRIMAGE 109 
 
 X THE MIRACLE 121 
 
 XI THE AFTERMATH 130 
 
 XII "SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY" 141 
 
 XIII REAL MONEY ............ 150 
 
 XIV KNOTTING THE STRINGS 163 
 
 XV THE MIRACLE OVERDONE ........ 177 
 
 XVI A FLY IN THE OINTMENT 194 
 
 XVII IN WHICH HELENA TAKES A REDE 203 
 
 XVIII THE BOOMERANG 222 
 
 XIX THE SANCTUARY OF DARKNESS 234 
 
 XX To THE VlCTOP. ARE THE SPOILS 345 
 
 XXI FACE VALUE ..,... 255 
 
 XXII THE SHRINE . . -.. . . .< ; . ; > .... 272 
 
 XXIII THE WAT Our . . : > . . >: . .... 286 
 
 XXIV VALE! . . . . . ; . M w : ., ... . ... . . 297
 
 THE MIRACLE MAN 

 
 The Miracle 
 
 Man 
 
 
 
 THE " ROOST " 
 
 H 
 
 E was a misshapen thing, bulking a 
 black blotch in the night at the en- 
 trance of the dark alleyway like 
 some lurking creature in its lair. He 
 neither stood, nor kneeled, nor sat no single 
 word would describe his posture he combined 
 all three in a sort of repulsive, formless heap. 
 
 The Flopper moved. He came out from the 
 alleyway onto the pavement, into the lurid lights 
 of the Bowery, flopping along knee to toe on one 
 leg, dragging the other leg behind him and the 
 leg he dragged was limp and wobbled from the 
 knee. One hand sought the pavement to balance 
 himself and aid in locomotion; the other arm, the 
 right, was twisted out from his body in tke shape 
 of an inverted V, the palm of his hand, with half 
 cuiied, contorted fingers, almost touching his chin, 
 
 9
 
 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 as his head sagged at a stiff, set angle into his 
 right shoulder. Hair straggled from the brim 
 of a nondescript felt hat into his eyes, and curled, 
 dirty and unshorn, around his ears and the nape 
 of his neck. His face was covered with a stubble 
 of four days' growth, his body with rags a 
 coat; a shirt, the button long since gone at the 
 neck; and trousers gaping in wide rents at the 
 knees, and torn at the ankles where they flapped 
 around miss-mated socks and shoes. 
 
 A hundred, two hundred people passed him in 
 a block, the populace of the Bowery awakening 
 into fullest life at midnight, men, women and 
 children the dregs of the city's scum the aris- 
 tocracy of upper Fifth Avenue, of Riverside 
 Drive, aping Bohemianism, seeking the lure of the 
 Turkey Trot, transported from the Barbary Coast 
 of San Francisco. Rich and poor, squalor and 
 affluence, vice and near-vice surged by him, voic- 
 ing their different interests with laughter and sobs 
 and soft words and blasphemy, and, in a sort of 
 mocking chorus, the composite effect rose and fell 
 in pitiful, jangling discords. 
 
 Few gave him heed and these few but a 
 cursory, callous glance. The Flopper, on the in- 
 side of the sidewalk, in the shadow of the build- 
 ings, gave as little as he got, though his eyes were 
 fastened sharply, now ahead, now, screwing 
 around his body to look behind him, on the faces 
 of the pedestrians as they passed; or, rather, he 
 appeared to look through and beyond those in his 
 immediate vicinity to the ones that followed in
 
 "THE ROOST" 
 
 his rear from further down the street, or 
 proached him from the next corner. 
 
 Suddenly the Flopper shrank into a doorwayc 
 From amidst the crowd behind, the yellow flare 
 of a gasoline lamp, outhanging from a second' 
 hand shop, glinted on brass buttons. An officer, 
 leisurely accommodating his pace to his own mo- 
 narchial pleasure, causing his hurrying fellow occu- 
 pants of the pavement to break and circle around 
 him, sauntered casually by. The Flopper' s black 
 eyes contracted with hate and a scowl settled on 
 his face, as he watched the policeman pass; then, 
 as the other was lost again in the crowd ahead, he 
 once more resumed his progress down the block. 
 
 The Flopper crossed the intersecting street, his 
 leg trailing a helpless, sinuous path on its not over- 
 clean surface, and started along the next block. 
 Halfway down was a garishly lighted establish- 
 ment. When near this the Flopper began to 
 hurry desperately, as from further along the street 
 again his ear caught the peculiar raucous note of 
 an automobile horn accompanied by the rumbling 
 approach of a heavy motor vehicle. He edged 
 his way now, wriggling, squirming and dodging 
 between the pedestrians, to the outer edge of the 
 sidewalk, and stopped in front of the music halL 
 
 A sight-seeing car, crammed to capacity, reach- 
 ing its momentary Mecca, drew up at the curb; 
 and the guide's voice rose over the screech of the 
 brakes : 
 
 " Now, ladies and gentlemen, we will get out 
 here for a little while. This is Black Ike's fa-
 
 12 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 mous Auditorium, the scene of last week's sensa- 
 tional triple murder! Please remember that 
 there is no charge for admission to patrons of the 
 company. Just show your coupons, ladies and 
 gentlemen, and walk right ahead." 
 
 The passengers began to pour from the long 
 seats to the ground. The Flopper's hat was in 
 his hand. 
 
 " Fer God's sake, gents an' ladies, don't pass 
 me by," he cried piteously. " I could work once, 
 but look at me now I was run over by a fire 
 truck. God bring pity to yer hearts youse 
 have money fer pleasure, spare something fer 
 me." 
 
 The first man down from the seat halted and 
 stared at the twisted, unsightly thing before him, 
 and, with a little gasp, reached into his pocket 
 and dropped a bill into the Flopper's hat. 
 
 " God bless you! " stammered the Flopper 
 and the tears sprang swimming to his eyes. 
 
 The first man passed on with a gruff, " Oh, all 
 right," but he had left an example behind him 
 that few of his fellow passengers ignored. 
 
 " T'ank you, mum," mumbled the Flopper, as 
 the money dropped into his hat " God reward 
 you, sir ... Ah, miss, may you never know a, 
 tear . . . 'Twas heaven brought you 'ere to- 
 night, lady." 
 
 They passed, following the guide. The Flop- 
 per scooped the money into a pile in his hat, be- 
 gan to tuck it away in some recess of his shirt 
 when a hand was thrust suddenly under his now.
 
 "THE ROOST' 13 
 
 " Come on, now, divvy! " snapped % voice in 
 kis ear. 
 
 It was the driver of the car, who had dropped 
 from his seat to the ground. A gleam of hate 
 replaced the tears in the Flopper's eyes. 
 
 " Go to hell! " he snarled through thin lips 
 and his hand closed automatically over the 
 cap. 
 
 " Come on, now, I ain't got no time to fool ! " 
 prompted the man, with a leer. " I'm dead onto 
 your lay, and there's a bull comin' along now 
 half or him, which? " 
 
 The Flopper's eyes caught the brass buttons of 
 the officer returning on his beat, and his face was 
 white with an inhuman passion, as, clutching a 
 portion of what was left in the hat, he lifted his 
 hand from the rest. 
 
 " Thanks ! " grinned the chauffeur, snatching at 
 the remainder. " 'Tain't half, but it'll do "--, 
 and he hurried across the sidewalk, and disap- 
 peared inside a saloon. 
 
 Oaths, voicing a passion that rocked die Flop- 
 per to his soul, purled in a torrid stream from his 
 lips, and for a moment made him forget the prox- 
 imity of the brass buttons. He raised his fist, 
 that still clenched some of the money, and shook 
 it after the other and his fist, uplifted in mid- 
 air, was caught in a vicious grip the harness 
 bull was standing over him. 
 
 " Beat it ! " rasped the officer roughly, " or I'll 
 hullo, what you got here ? Open your hand ! " 
 he gave a sharp twist as he spoke, the Flop-
 
 14 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 per's fingers uncurled, and the money dropped 
 into the policeman's other hand held conven- 
 iently below the Flopper's. 
 
 " It's mine gimme it back," whined the 
 Flopper. 
 
 ' Yours ! Yours, is it ! " growled the officer. 
 " Where'd you get it? Stole it, eh? Go on, 
 now, beat it or I'll run you in ! Beat it ! " 
 
 With twitching fingers, the Flopper picked up 
 his cap, placed it on his head and sidled away. 
 Ten yards along, in the shadow of the buildings 
 again, he looked back the officer was still 
 standing there, twirling his stick, one hand just 
 emerging from his pocket. The Flopper's finger 
 nails scratched along the stone pavement and 
 curved into the palm of his hand until the skin 
 under the knuckles was bloodless white, and his 
 lips moved in ugly, whispered words then, still 
 whispering, he went on again. 
 
 Down the Bowery he went like a human toad, 
 keeping in the shadows, keeping his eyes on the 
 ground before him, a glint like a shudder in their 
 depths on he went with hopping, lurching 
 jerks, with whispering lips. Street after street 
 he passed, and then at a corner he turned and 
 went East not far, only to the side entrance 
 of the saloon on the corner known, to those who 
 knew, as the " Roost." 
 
 The door before which he stopped, on a level 
 with the street, might readily have passed for 
 the entrance to one of the adjoining tenements, 
 for it was innocent to all appearances of any con-
 
 "THE ROOST' 15 
 
 nection with the unlovely resort of which it was 
 a part and it was closed. 
 
 The Flopper rang no bell. After a quick 
 glance around him to assure himself that he was 
 not observed, he reached up for the doorknob, 
 turned it, and with surprising agility hopped over 
 the threshold and closed the door behind him. 
 
 A staircase, making one side of a narrow and 
 dimly lighted hall, from down whose length came 
 muffled sounds from the barroom, was before him; 
 and this, without hesitation, the Flopper began 
 to mount, his knee thumping from step to step, 
 his dangling leg echoing the sound in a peculiar 
 quick double thump. He reached the first land- 
 ing, went along it, and started up the second flight 
 but now the thumping sound he made seemed 
 accentuated intentionally, and upon his face there 
 cpread a grin of malicious humor. 
 
 He halted before the door opposite the head 
 of the second flight of stairs, opened it, wriggled 
 Inside and shut it behind him. 
 
 "Hullo, Helena!" he snickered. "Pipe me 
 comin' ? " 
 
 The room was a fairly large one, gaudily ap- 
 pointed with cheap furnishings, one of the Roost's 
 private parlors a girl on a couch in the corner 
 had raised herself on her elbow, and her dark 
 eyes were fixed uncompromisingly upon the Flop- 
 per, but she made no answer. 
 
 The Flopper laughed then a spasm seemed 
 to run through him, a horrible boneless contor- 
 tion of limbs and body, a slippery, twitching
 
 1 6 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 movement, a repulsive though almost inaudible 
 clicking of rehabilitated joints and the Flopper 
 stood erect. 
 
 The girl was on her feet, her eyes flashing. 
 
 "Can that stunt S " she cried angrily. "You 
 give me the shivers ! Next time you throw your 
 fit, you throw it before you come around me, or 
 I'll make you wish you had see? " 
 
 The Flopper was swinging legs and arms to 
 restore a normal channel of circulation. 
 
 ' Y'oughter get used to it," said he, with a 
 grin. " Ain't Pale Face Harry come yet, an' 
 where's the Doc? " 
 
 " Behind the axe under the table," said the 
 girl tartly and flung herself back on the couch. 
 
 " T'anks," said the Flopper. " Say, Helena, 
 wot's de new lay de Doc has got up his sleeve? " 
 
 Helena made no answer. 
 
 " Is yer grouch painin' you so's yer tongue's 
 hurt?" inquired the Flopper solicitously. 
 
 Still no answer. 
 
 ;< Well, go to the devil ! " said the Flopper 
 politely. 
 
 He resumed the swinging of his arms and legs, 
 but stopped suddenly a moment later as a step 
 sounded outside in the hall and he turned expect- 
 antly. 
 
 A young man, thin, emaciated, with gaunt, hol- 
 low face, abnormally bright eyes and sallow skin, 
 entered. He was well, but modestly, dressed; 
 and he coughed a little now, as though the two 
 flights' climb had overtaxed him it was the
 
 "THE ROOST' I7 ' 
 
 man who had headed the subscription list to the 
 Flopper half an hour before in front of Black 
 Ike's Auditorium. 
 
 " Hello, Helena ! " he greeted, nodding toward 
 the touch. '' I shook the rubber-neck bunch at 
 Ike's, Flopper. That was a peach of a haul, eh, 
 old pal the boobs came to it as though they 
 couldn't get enough." 
 
 A sudden and reminiscent scowl clouded the 
 Flopper's face. He stepped to the table, reached 
 his hand into his shirt, and flung down a single 
 one-dollar bill and a few coins. 
 
 " Dere's de haul, Harry help yerself " 
 his invitation was a snarl. 
 
 Pale Face Harry had followed to the table. 
 He looked first at the money, then at the Flopper 
 and a tinge of red dyed his cheek. He 
 coughed before he spoke. 
 
 4 Y'ain't going to stall on me, Flopper, are 
 you? " he demanded, in an ominous monotone. 
 
 " Stall! " the word came away in a roar too- 
 genuine to leave any doubt of the Flopper's sin- 
 cerity, or the turbulent state of the Flopper's soul. 
 " Stall nothin' ! De driver held me up fer some 
 of it, an' de cop pinched de rest." 
 
 " And you the king of Floppers ! " breathed 
 Pale Face Harry sadly. " D'ye hear that, 
 Helena? Come over here and listen. Go 
 ahead, Flopper, tell us about it." 
 
 Helena rose from the couch and came over to 
 the table. 
 
 " Poor Flopper! " said she sweetly.
 
 iS THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 " Shut up ! " snapped the Flopper savagely. 
 
 11 Go on," prompted Pale Face Harry. " Go 
 on, Flopper tell us about it." 
 
 14 1 told you, ain't I ? " growled the Flopper. 
 " De driver called a divvy wid de cop comin', an 
 I had ter shell an' wot he left de cop pinched. 
 Dat's all " the Flopper's mouth was working 
 again with the rage that burned within him. 
 
 Pale Face Harry, with pointed forefinger, 
 gingerly and facetiously laid the coins out in a row 
 on the table. 
 
 41 And you the king of Floppers!" he mur- 
 mured softly. " It's a wonder you didn't let the 
 Salvation Army get the rest away from you on 
 the way along 1 " 
 
 Helena laughed but the Flopper didn't. He 
 stepped close to Pale Face Harry, and shoved his 
 face within an inch of the other's. 
 
 ' You close yer jaw," he snarled, " or I'll make 
 yer map look like wot's goin' ter happen ter dat 
 cross-eyed snitch of a guy dat did me him an' de 
 harness bull, when I " The Flopper stopped 
 abruptly, and edged away from Pale Face Harry. 
 " Hullo, Doc," he said meekly. " I didn't hear 
 youse comin' in." 
 
 A man, fair-haired, broad-shouldered, immacu- 
 late in well-tailored tweeds, relia*nt in poise, leaned 
 nonchalantly against the door inside the room. 
 He was young, not more than twenty-eight, with 
 clean-shaven, pleasant, open face a handsome 
 face, marred only to the close observer by the 
 wrinkles beginning to pucker around his eyes, and
 
 "THE ROOST' 19 
 
 a slight, scarcely discernible puffiness in his skin 
 " Doc " Madison, gentleman crook and high- 
 class, polished con-man, who had lifted his pro- 
 fession to an art, was still too young to be indelibly 
 stamped with the hall-marks of dissipation. 
 
 His gray eyes travelled from one to another, 
 lingered an instant on Helena, and came back to 
 the Flopper. 
 
 " What's the trouble? " he demanded quietly. 
 
 It was Pale Face Harry who answered him. 
 
 " Tke Flopper's got it in for a couple of ginks 
 that handed him one a bull and a chauffeur on 
 a gape-wagon," he grinned, punctuating his words 
 with a cough. " The Flopper's got an idea the 
 corpse-preserver's business is dull, and he's going 
 to help 'em out with two orders and pay for the 
 flowers himself." 
 
 Doc Madison shook his head and smiled a little 
 grimly. 
 
 " Forget it, Flopper ! " he said crisply. " I've 
 something better for you to do. You fade away, 
 disappear and lay low from this minute. I don't 
 care what you do when you're resurrected, but 
 from now on the three of you are dead and 
 buried, and the police go into mourning for at 
 least six months." 
 
 "What you got for us, Doc? something 
 nice?" Helena pushed Pale Face Harry and 
 the Flopper unceremoniously out of her line of 
 vision as she spoke. 
 
 " Yes the drinks. Cleggy's bringing them," 
 Madison laughed and opened the door, as the
 
 20 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 tinkle of glass and a shuffling footstep sounded 
 without. 
 
 A man, big, hulking, thick-set and slouching, 
 with shifty, cunning little black eyes and the face 
 of a bruiser, his nose bent over and almost flat- 
 tened down on one cheek, entered the room, car- 
 rying four glasses on a tin tray. He set down 
 the tray, and, as he lifted the glasses from it and 
 placed them on the table, he leered around at the 
 little group. 
 
 " Gee ! " he said, sucking in his breath. " De 
 Doc, an' Helena, an' Pale Face, an' de Flopper! 
 Gee, dis looks like de real t'ing dis looks like 
 biz." 
 
 " It does fifty-cents' worth ten for your- 
 self," said Doc Madison suavely, flipping the coin 
 into the tray. "Now, clear out!" 
 
 " Say " Cleggy put his forefinger significantly 
 to the side of his nose " say, can't youse let a 
 sport in on " 
 
 " Clear out ! " Doc Madison broke in quite 
 as suavely as before but there was a sudden 
 glint of steel in the gray eyes as they held the 
 bruiser's, and Cleggy, hastily picking up the tray, 
 scuffled from the room. 
 
 Madison watched the door close, then he be- 
 gan to pace slowly up and down the room. 
 
 " Pull the chairs up to the table so we can 
 take things comfortably," he directed. 
 
 " There ain't but two," grinned Pale Face 
 Harry. 
 
 " Oh, well, never mind," said Madison.
 
 'THE ROOST' 21 
 
 " Slew the couch around and pull that up 
 Helena and I will sit on the head of it." 
 
 Still pacing up and down the length of the room, 
 his hands in his pockets, Doc Madison watched 
 the others as they carried out his directions; and 
 then, suddenly, as he neared the door, his hand 
 shot out, wrenched the door open, and, quick as 
 a panther in its spring, he was in the hall without. 
 
 There was a yell, a scuffle, the rip and crash of 
 rending bannisters, an instant's silence, then a 
 heavy thud and then Cleggy's voice from some- 
 where below in a choice and fervent flow of pro- 
 fanity. 
 
 Doc Madison re-entered the room, closed the 
 door, dispassionately arranged a disordered cuff, 
 brushed a few particles of dust from his sleeves 
 and shoulder, and, this done, started toward the 
 table and stopped. 
 
 Helena had swung herself to the table edge, 
 and, glass in hand, dangling her neatly shod little 
 feet, was smoking a cigarette, her brown hair with 
 a glint of amber in it, her dark eyes veiled now 
 by their heavy lashes; on the other side of the 
 table Pale Face Harry coughed, as, with sleeve 
 rolled back, he was intent on the hypodermic nee- 
 dle he was pushing into his arm; while the Flop- 
 per, his eyes with a dog-like admiration in them 
 fixed on Madison, stood facing the door, a gro- 
 tesque, unpleasant figure, unkempt, unshaven, fur- 
 tive-faced, his rags hanging disreputably about 
 him, his trousers with their frayed edges, now 
 that he stood upright, reaching far above his boot
 
 22 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 tops and flagrantly exposing his wretched substi- 
 tutes for socks. 
 
 Doc Madison reached thoughtfully into his 
 pocket, brought out a silver cigarette case, and 
 carefully selected a cigarette from amongst its 
 fellows. 
 
 "Yes; Cleggy was right," he said softly, tap- 
 ping the end of the cigarette on his thumb nail. 
 " You're the real thing - the real, real thing."
 
 II 
 
 A NEW CULT 
 
 DOC MADISON swung Helena lightly 
 down from the table to the head of 
 the couch, sat down beside her, one 
 arm circling her waist, and mo- 
 tioned the Flopper to a chair then he leaned 
 forward and watched Pale Face Harry critically, 
 as the latter carefully replaced the shining little 
 hypodermic in its case. 
 
 " Harry," said he abruptly, jerking his free 
 hand toward the hypodermic, " could you give 
 up that dope-needle? " 
 
 "Sure, I could if I wanted to!" asserted 
 Pale Face Harry defiantly. 
 
 " That's good," said Madison cheerfully. 
 " Because you'll have to." 
 
 "Eh?" Pale Face Harry stared at Doc 
 Madison in amazement. 
 
 " Because you'll have to by and by," said 
 Madison coolly. f< And hew about that cough 
 can you quit coughing?" 
 
 "When I'm dead which won't be long,'* 
 sniffed Pale Face Harry. " D'ye think I cough 
 because I like it? How'm I going to quit cough- 
 ing?"
 
 24 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 " I don't know," admitted Doc Madison, 
 frowning seriously. " I only know you'll have 
 to." 
 
 Pale Face Harry, with jaw dropped, accentu- 
 ating the gaunt leanness of his hollow-cheeked, 
 emaciated face, gazed at Doc Madison with a 
 curious mingling of incredulity and affront and 
 coughed. 
 
 " Say," he inquired grimly, " what's the an- 
 swer? " 
 
 Doc Madison took his arm from Helena's 
 waist, pulled a newspaper from his pocket, spread 
 it out on the table and his manner changed 
 suddenly enthusiasm was in his eyes, his voice, 
 his face. 
 
 " I've steered you three through a few deals," 
 said he impressively, " that have sized up big 
 enough to keep you out of the raw vaudeville turn 
 you, Harry, and you, Flopper, are so fond of, 
 and that would have put Helena here on easy 
 street, if you hadn't blown in all you got about 
 ten minutes after you got your hands on it but 
 I've got one here that sizes up so big you wouldn't 
 be able to spend the money fast enough to close 
 out your bank account if you did your damnedest ! 
 Get that? It's the greatest cinch that ever came 
 down from the gateway of heaven and that's 
 where it came from heaven. It couldn't have 
 come from anywhere else it's too good. And 
 it's new, bran new it's never had the string cut 
 or the wrapper taken off. It's got anything that 
 was ever run beaten by more laps than there are in
 
 A NEW CULT 25, 
 
 the track, and it's got a purse tied on to the end 
 of it that's the biggest ever offered since Adam. 
 But you've got to work for it, and that's what I 
 brought you here for to-night to learn your little 
 pieces so's you can say 'em nice and cute when 
 you get up on the platform before the audience." 
 
 The Flopper's tongue made a greedy circuit 
 of his upper and under lips, and he hitched his 
 chair closer to the table. 
 
 A flush spread over Pale Face Harry's cheeks, 
 and his eyes, abnormally bright, grew brighter. 
 
 " You're all right, Doc," he assured Doc Madi- 
 son anxiously. " You're all right." 
 
 "U-uu-mm!" cooed Helena excitedly. "Go 
 on, Doc go on ! " 
 
 " Listen," said Doc Madison, his voice lowered 
 a little. " I found this tucked away as a filler 
 in a corner of the newspaper this evening. It's 
 headed, ' A New Cult,' with an interrogation mark 
 after it. Now listen, while I read it: " 
 
 A NEW CULT? 
 
 Needley, Maine, offers no attraction for aspiring young 
 medical men. One who tried it recently, and who pulled 
 down his shingle in disgust after a week, says competition 
 is too strong, as the village is obsessed with the belief that 
 they have a sort of faith-healer in their midst to whom is 
 attributed cures of all descriptions stretching back for a 
 generation or more. The healer, he adds, who rejoices 
 in the name of the Patriarch and lives in solitude a mile or 
 so from the village, is something of an anomaly in himself, 
 being both deaf and dumb. We
 
 26 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 " But that's all that interests us," said Doc 
 Madison, as he stopped reading abruptly and 
 lifted his head to scrutinize his companions quiz- 
 zically. 
 
 Pale Face Harry's eyes had lost their gleam 
 and dulled he gaped reproachfully at Doc 
 Madison. Helena's small mouth drooped down- 
 ward in a disappointed moue. Only the Flopper 
 evidenced enthusiastic response. 
 
 "Sure!" he chortled. "Sure t'ing! I see. 
 De old geezer'll have a pile of shekels hid away, 
 an' he lives by his lonesome a mile from de town. 
 We sneaks down dere, croaks de guy wid de queer 
 monaker, an' beats it wid de shekels sure ! " 
 
 Doc Madison turned a sad gray eye on the 
 Flopper. 
 
 " Flopper," said he pathetically, " your soul, 
 like your bones, runs to rank realism. No; we 
 don't ' croak de guy ' we cherish him, we nurse 
 him, we fondle him. He's our one best bet, and 
 we fold him to our breasts tenderly, and we pro- 
 tect him from all harm and danger and sudden 
 death." 
 
 The Flopper blinked a little helplessly. 
 
 " Mabbe," said the Flopper, " I got de wrong 
 dope. Some of dem words you read I ain't hip 
 to. Wot's anymaly mean?" 
 
 "Anomaly?" Doc Madison reached for his 
 glass, tossed off the contents and set it down. " It 
 means, Flopper, in this particular instance," he 
 said gravely, " that .there shouldn't be any inter- 
 rogation point after the heading."
 
 A NEW CULT 27 
 
 Again the Flopper blinked helplessly and 
 his fingers picked uncertainly at the stubble on his 
 chin. The other two gazed disconsolately 
 and Helena a little pityingly as well at Doc 
 Madison. 
 
 Doc Madison flung out his arms suddenly. 
 
 "What's the matter with you all?" he de- 
 manded sarcastically. " You look as though your 
 faces pained you ! What's the matter with you ? 
 You're bright enough ordinarily, Helena, and, 
 Harry, you're no dub what's the matter with 
 you ? Can't you see it can't you see it ! Why, 
 it's sticking out a mile it's waiting for us ! 
 The whole plant's there and all we've got to do 
 is get steam under the boilers. We'll have 'em 
 coming for the cure from every State in the Union, 
 and begging us to let them throw their diamond 
 tiaras at us for a look-in at the shrine. Don't 
 you see it can't you get it can't you get 
 it!" 
 
 Helena bent suddenly over Doc Madison's 
 shoulder, her eyes opening wide with dawning 
 comprehension. 
 
 " The cure? " she breathed. 
 
 " Sure the cure," said Doc Madison ear- 
 nestly. "The new cult that's us. Get the 
 people talking, show 'em something, and you'll 
 have to put up fences and * keep off the grass ' 
 signs to stop the lame and the halt and the blind 
 and the neurasthenics from crowding and suffocat- 
 ing to death for want of air. We'll start a shrine 
 down there that'll be a winner, and the railroad*
 
 28 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 will be running excursion-rate pilgrimages inside 
 of two months." 
 
 Pale Face Harry's chair creaked, as, like the 
 Flopper, he now crowded it in toward the table. 
 
 " I get you ! " said he feverishly. " I get you! 
 I've read about them shrines only you gotter 
 have churches, and a carload of crutches, and that 
 sort of thing laying around." 
 
 Doc Madison smiled pleasantly. 
 
 "Yes; you've got me, Harry only we'll do 
 the stage setting a little differently. Mostly what 
 is required is faith. Get them going on that, 
 and everybody that's sick or near-sick in this great 
 United States, that's got the swellest collection of 
 boobs and millionaires on earth, will swarm thith- 
 erward like bees there won't be any one left 
 in the sanatoriums throughout the length of this 
 broad land of freedom but the bell boys and the 
 elevator men. Get them going, and all we've got 
 to do is look out we don't let anything get by 
 us in the crush a snowball rolling down hill 
 will size up like a plugged nickel alongside of a 
 twenty-dollar gold piece when it gets to the bot- 
 tom, compared with what we start rolling." 
 
 " I've got you, too," said Helena. " But I 
 don't see where the faith is coming from, or how 
 you're going to get them coming. You've got 
 to show them you said so yourself even the 
 boobs. How are you going to do that? " 
 
 "Well," said Doc Madison placidly, "we'll 
 start the show with a miracle. I haven't
 
 A NEW CULT 29 
 
 thoughi of anything more effective than that so 
 far." 
 
 "A what?" inquired Pale Face Harry, with 
 a grin. 
 
 " A miracle," repeated Doc Madison imper- 
 turbably. "A miracle with the Flopper here 
 in the star role. The Flopper goes down there 
 all tied up in knots, the high priest, alias the deaf 
 and dumb healer, alias the Patriarch, lays his 
 soothing hands upon him, the Flopper uncoils into 
 something that looks like a human being and 
 the trumpets blow, the band plays, and the box 
 office opens for receipts." 
 
 Helena slid from her seat, and, with hands on 
 the edge of the table, advanced her piquant little 
 face close to Doc Madison's, staring at him, 
 breathing hard. 
 
 " Say that again," she gasped. " Say that 
 again say it just once more." 
 
 Pale Face Harry's hand, trembling visibly with 
 emotion, was thrust out across the table. 
 
 " Put it there, Doc," he whispered hoarsely. 
 
 The Flopper, practical, earnestly so, lifted his 
 right arm, wriggled it a little and began to twist 
 it around, as though it were on a pivot at the 
 elbow, preparatory to drawing it in, a crippled 
 thing, toward his chin. 
 
 Doc Madison reached out hurriedly and stopped 
 him. 
 
 " Here, that'll do, Flopper," he said quietly. 
 ' You don't need any rehearsal to hold your job
 
 3 o THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 you're down for the number and your check's 
 written out." 
 
 " Swipe me !" said the Flqpper to the universe. 
 " I can smell de pine woods of Maine in me nos- 
 trils now. When does I beat it, Doc to-mor- 
 rer?" 
 
 Doc Madison laughed. 
 
 "No, Flopper, not to-morrow nor for sev- 
 eral to-morrows not till the bill-posters get 
 through, and the stage is dark, and you can hear 
 a pin drop in the house. I don't want you camp- 
 ing out and catching cold and missing any of the 
 luxuries you're accustomed to, so I'll start along 
 ahead in a day or so myself and see what kind of 
 accommodations I can secure." 
 
 " Swipe me! " said the Flopper again. "An' 
 to think of me wastin' me talent on rubber-neck 
 fleets!" 
 
 A puzzled little frown puckered Helena's fore- 
 head. 
 
 " I was thinking about the deaf and dumb 
 man," she said slowly. " How about him, when 
 we pull this off will he stand for it and 
 what'llhedo?" 
 
 " Aw ! " said Pale Face Harry impatiently. 
 " He don't count! He'll have bats in his belfry 
 anyway, and if he ain't he'll go off his chump for 
 fair getting stuck on himself when he sees the 
 stunt he'll think he's done. He'll be looking for 
 the wings between his shoulder blades, and hunt- 
 ing for the halo around his head." 
 
 " Harry is waking up," observed Doc Madison
 
 A NEW CULT 31 
 
 affably. " That's about the idea, Helena. I 
 haven't seen the Patriarch yet, but I don't imagine 
 from his description that it'll be very hard to make 
 him believe in himself. He doesn't stand for 
 anything we don't deal him any cards he's 
 just the kitty that circles around with the jackpots 
 while we annex the chips." 
 
 Doc Madison reached into his vest pocket, took 
 out a penknife whose handle was gold-chased, 
 opened it, and very carefully cut the article he had 
 read from the paper. . 
 
 " Flopper," said he, " you've heard of gold 
 bonds, haven't you? " 
 
 The Flopper's eyes gleamed an eloquent re- 
 sponse. 
 
 "Only you've never had any, eh?" supplied 
 Doc Madison. 
 
 u Where'd I get 'em?" inquired the Flopper,, 
 with some bitterness. 
 
 " Right here," smiled Doc Madison, handing, 
 him the clipping. " Here's a trainload and a 
 bank vault full of them combined. Put it away, 
 Flopper, and don't lose it. Lose anything you've 
 got first lose your life. It's worth a private 
 car to you with a buffet full of fizz, and Sambo to 
 wait on you for the rest of your life. Get that? 
 Don't lose it! " 
 
 The Flopper tucked the clipping into the mys- 
 terious recess of his shirt. 
 
 " Say," he said earnestly, " if you say so, Doc, 
 it'll be here when dey plant me." 
 
 "All right, Flopper," nodded Doc Madison.
 
 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 now let's get down to cases. I've been able 
 '^to pay my club dues lately, and there's money 
 slough on deck to buy the costumes and put the 
 show on the road. I start for Needley as soon 
 s I can get away. When I'm ready for the sup- 
 port, you three will hear from me and in the 
 ^meantime you lay low. Nothing doing under- 
 stand? You'll get all the lime-light you want 
 tjefore you're through, and it's just as well not to 
 show up so familiar when they throw the spot 
 <on you that even the school kids will know the date 
 -t>f your birth, and the population will start in 
 -squabbling over the choice of reserved niches for 
 'you in the Hall of Fame. See?" 
 
 The Flopper, Pale Face Harry and Helena 
 modded their heads with one accord. 
 
 " Give us the whole lay, Doc," urged Pale Face 
 Harry. " And give it to us quick." 
 
 " Me mouth's waterin'," observed the Flop- 
 per, licking his lips again. 
 
 Helena lighted another cigarette, and swung 
 ^herself back to her perch on the head of the 
 couch. 
 
 Doc Madison surveyed the three with mingled 
 admiration and delight. 
 
 " The world is ours! " he murmured softly. 
 
 " Oh, hurry up and give us the rest of it," 
 purred Helena. "We know we're an all-star 
 ' .sast, all right." 
 
 " Very good," said Doc Madison and 
 llaiighed. " Well then, the order of your stage 
 will depend on circumstances and what turns
 
 A NEW CULT 3$ 
 
 up down there, but we'll start with the Flopper 
 now. First of all, Flopper, you've got to have-. 
 a name. What's your real name what did 
 they decorate you with at the baptismal font back 
 in the dark ages? " 
 
 The Flopper scrubbed at his very dirty chm, 
 with a very dirty thumb and forefinger. 
 
 " I dunno," said the Flopper anxiously. 
 
 * 4 Well, never mind," said Doc Madison reas- 
 suringly. " Maybe you are blessed above most 
 people you can pick one out for yourself. 
 What'll it be?" 
 
 The Flopper's thumb and forefinger scratched 
 desperately for a moment, then his face lightest 
 with inspiration. 
 
 " Swipe me! " said he excitedly. " I got it - 
 Jimmy de Squirm." 
 
 Doc Madison shook his head gravely. 
 
 " No, Flopper, I'm afraid not," he said gently^ 
 " That's another weak point in your interprcta^ 
 tion of the role, that I'll come to in a minutex 
 We'll give you an Irish name by way of charity 
 it'll help to make your classical English sound 
 like brogue. We'll call you Coogan Michael 
 Coogan that lets you off with plain Mike VK 
 times of stress." 
 
 "Swipe me!" said the Flopper, with perfect 
 complacence. 
 
 " Glad it pleases you," smiled Doc Madisoni. 
 " Here's your lay, then. You've got to remo 
 ber that you were born crooked and " 
 
 Helena giggled.
 
 34 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 " I didn't mean it " Doc Madison's gray eyes 
 twinkled. ' You are waking up, too, Helena. 
 I mean, Flopper, you've got to remember that you 
 were born twisted up into the same shape you 
 are in when you hit Needley. You come from 
 let's see we'll have to have a big city where 
 the next door neighbors pass each other with a 
 vacant stare. Ever been in Chicago ? " 
 
 "Naw! Wot fer?" said the Flopper, with 
 withering spontaneity. " Noo Yoik fer mine." 
 
 "Well, all right New York it is, then," 
 agreed Doc Madison. ' You're poor, but re- 
 spectable and that brings us to the other point. 
 Before you go down there, Helena's going to 
 start a little night-school with a grammar, and 
 teach you to paddle along the fringe of the great 
 American language so's you won't fall in and 
 get wet all over every time you open your mouth." 
 
 " My ! " exclaimed Helena. " Won't that be 
 nice!" 
 
 " I hope so," said Doc Madison drily. " And 
 don't run away with the idea that I'm joking about 
 this that goes. I don't expect to make a silver- 
 tongued orator out of you, Flopper, and perhaps 
 not even a purist but I hope to eradicate a few 
 i minor touches of Bad Land vernacular from your 
 'vocabulary." 
 
 " I've gotcher swipe me 1 " grinned the Flop- 
 per. " Me at school ! Say, wouldn't that put a 
 smile on de maps of de harness bulls, an' de dips, 
 an' de lags doin' spaces up de river! " 
 
 " Quite so," admitted Doc Madison pleasantly.
 
 A NEW CULT 35 
 
 " You won't laugh when I get through with 
 you," remarked Helena, her eyes on the curl of 
 smoke from her cigarette. 
 
 '' There's just one more thing," went on Doc 
 Madison, " and I'm through with you, Flopper. 
 Don't come down there looking like a skate 
 that's too raw. Get new clothes and a shave 
 and keep shaved. And from the minute you buy 
 your ticket, you keep your bones, or whatever a 
 beneficent nature has given you in place of them, 
 out of joint see ? " 
 
 " I'm hip," declared the Flopper and the 
 dog-like admiration for Doc Madison burned in 
 his eyes. " Say, Doc, youse are de " 
 
 " Never mind, Flopper," Madison cut in 
 brightly. " It's getting late. Now, Harry, about 
 you. You've got a name, I believe. Evans, isn't 
 it? Yes well, that will do. Now, don't kill 
 yourself at it, but the more you work your dope 
 needle overtime before you start, and the harder 
 you cough when you first land there the better. 
 We've got to have variety, you know. You're a 
 physical wreck with the folks back home sending 
 the casket and trimmings after you on the next 
 train In care of the station agent." 
 
 " I guess," coughed Pale Face Harry, with a 
 sickly smile, " I look the part." 
 
 " You certainly do," said Helena cheerfully, 
 beating a tattoo with her heels on the end of the 
 couch. 
 
 Pale Face Harry scowled. 
 
 " I ain't no artist with the paint," he sniffed.
 
 3$ THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 u I don't paint," said Helena sweetly. " k's 
 jrouge." 
 
 '* Are you through?" inquired Doc Madison 
 patiently. " Because, if you are, I'll go on. 
 When the train whistles for Needley, Harry, you 
 put the soft pedal on the dope that ought to 
 Jhelp some. And then you begin to taper that 
 -cough off and become a cure that's all." 
 
 " 1 ain't like the Flopper," said Pale Face 
 Harry ruefully. " I told you once I can't stop 
 the hack, and I ask you again how'm I going to? " 
 
 ** Have faith in the Patriarch," suggested Hel- 
 ena innocently. 
 
 * You close your trap ! " exclaimed Pale Face 
 Harry savagely; then, to Madison: "Go on, 
 Doc it's up to you." 
 
 ** No," said Doc Madison coolly, " it's up to 
 you. You've got to try, and if you can't stop 
 -altogether you can make yourself scarce when you 
 feel the fit coming on you won't have to climb 
 up on the grandstand and cough in people's faces, 
 
 you? 
 
 " He might carry a screen around with him and 
 'cough behind that," volunteered Helena. " That's 
 enough about the Flopper and Pale Face what 
 about muh? Where do I get off? " 
 
 "You?" said Doc Madison calmly. " Oh, 
 you're a moral neurasthenic." 
 
 " And what's that when it's at home ? " de- 
 manded Helena sharply. 
 
 Doc Madison threw out his hands in a com- 
 'ically helpless, impotent gesture.
 
 A NEW CULT 32 
 
 " It's what we need to keep up the standard o 
 variety," he said. ; ' We're playing to the masses^. 
 Don't you like the role, Helena it's the leading 
 woman's." 
 
 " What do I do? " countered Helena non-con^ 
 mittingly. 
 
 41 Do ? " echoed Doc Madison. " Why, you go 
 down there like a whole parade and a gorgeous 
 pageant rolled into one, in feathers and paint and. 
 diamond boulders in your ears and you come 
 out of it in a gingham apron and coy sursbonnet as* 
 sweet sixteen." 
 
 *' Oh ! " said Helena and her eyes were oa 
 the curl of smoke from her cigarette again. 
 
 " Say," said Pale Face Harry suddenly, evi- 
 dently still worried about his cough, " we ain't 
 going to have no easy cinch of this." 
 
 " No," said Doc Madison, with a grim smiles 
 " you're not ! It's going to be the hardest wort 
 any of you have ever done you've got to leadl 
 decent lives for awhile." 
 
 " Sure dat's right," said the loyal Flopper^ 
 " but we stands fer anyt'ing dat de Doc says 
 an' dat goes ! " 
 
 " It'll come hard on some of us," remarked: 
 Pale Face Harry, with a sly glance at Helena* 
 which met with contemptuous silence. 
 
 Doc Madison leaned back, felt carefully at 
 his carefully adjusted tie and smiled engag- 
 ingly. 
 
 "Well? " he asked. " Can you see them coca* 
 ing?"
 
 38 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 Pale Face Harry stared at him with a far-away 
 expression in his eyes. 
 
 * When we get through with this, if I ain't 
 handed in my checks before," he said dreamily, 
 " it's mine for a brownstone on the Avenue, and 
 one of them life-size landscapes with a shack on 
 it for the season down to Pa'm Beach that they 
 call country cottages. I'll dress the ginks that 
 scrub the horses down in solid gold braid, and put 
 the corpse of chamber ladies in Irish lace I 
 bust into society, marry a duke's one and only, 
 and swipe her coronet for my manly brow. Did 
 you ask me anything, Doc? " 
 
 " Swipe me! " said the Flopper. " Me in me 
 private Pullman in a plush seat an' anudder to put 
 me feet in, an' me thumbs in de armholes of me 
 vest. I wears a high polished lid an' a red tie, 
 an' scatters simoleans outer de window in me 
 travels to the gazaboes on de platforms as I pass 
 an' den I joins Tammany Hall so's I can stick 
 me fingers to me nose every time I sees a cop." 
 
 " Flopper," said Doc Madison in an awed 
 voice, " the honor is all mine." 
 
 Helena went off into a peal of rippling, silvery, 
 contagious laughter, and her little heels again beat 
 an exuberant tattoo on the end of the couch. 
 
 " Yes? " invited Doc Madison, smiling at her. 
 
 " I'm seeing them coming," said Helena and 
 one heel went through the cretonne upholstery of 
 the couch. 
 
 " Good! " said Doc Madison and from the 
 inside pocket of his coat he pulled out a package
 
 A NEW CULT 39 
 
 of crisp, new, yellow-backed bills. " You under- 
 stand that down there none of you ever heard of 
 each other or of me before, and you drop the 
 ' doc ' bury it ! My name is John G. Madison 
 G. for Garfield." His fingers passed deftly 
 over the edges of the bills. He pushed a little 
 pile toward the Flopper, another toward Pale 
 Face Harry, and tucked the remainder into his 
 coat pocket again. " That'll do for expenses," he 
 said. " And now, if you understand everything, 
 principally that you're to go to church Sundays 
 till you hear from me, and you're quite satisfied 
 with the lay, we'll adjourn, sine die, to Needley." 
 
 Helena was holding out a very dainty hand, 
 with pink, wiggling fingers. 
 
 " I'll need, oh, ever so much more than they 
 will," she declared, with a bewitching pout. 
 " And, please, I'm waiting very patiently." 
 
 Doc Madison laughed. 
 
 "By and by, Helena," he said, patting her 
 hand. "Well, Flopper, well, Harry what do 
 you say? " 
 
 The Flopper pushed back his chair and stood 
 up hesitantly like a man unexpectedly called upon 
 for an after-dinner speech. He stood there awk- 
 wardly a moment gazing at Doc Madison, his 
 tongue slowly circling his lips; then, with a gulp, 
 as though words to express his feelings were ut- 
 terly beyond him, he turned and started for the 
 door. 
 
 Pale Face Harry, as he rose, shoved out his 
 hand.
 
 40 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 " I don't deserve my luck to be in on this," he 
 said modestly. " Only, Doc, push it along on the 
 high gear, will you I ain't going to be able to 
 sleep thinking about it." He looked at Helena 
 a little undecidedly and compromised on brev- 
 ity. " 'Night, Helena," he flung out. 
 
 " Oh, good-night, Harry," she smiled. 
 
 The Flopper turned at the door and came back 
 a few steps into the room. 
 
 " Say, Doc," he said, blinking furiously, 
 " youse can wipe yer feet on me any time yoose 
 like dat's wotl " 
 
 " All right, Flopper," said Doc Madison 
 gravely. ' When you've joined Tammany Hall 
 good-night." He followed across the room, 
 and from the doorway watched the two descend 
 the stairs. " Good-night," he said again, then 
 closed the door and came back into the room. 
 " Well, Helena? " he remarked tentatively. 
 
 " Well Garfield ? " Helena clasped her 
 hands around one knee and rocked gently. 
 
 " Don't be familiar, Helena," Doc Madison 
 chuckled. " Is that all you've got to say? " 
 
 " I'm busy thinking about The Great American 
 Play," she said pertly. " There's one thing yu 
 forgot" 
 
 "What's that?" he asked, still smiling. 
 
 " The curtain on the last act," she said. " The 
 getaway." 
 
 Doc Madison shook his head. 
 
 " Nothing doing! " he returned. ' There's no 
 getaway. It's safe so safe that there's nothing
 
 A NEW CULT 41 
 
 to it. We don't guarantee anything, and there's 
 no entrance fee to the pavilion all contributions 
 are strictly voluntary." 
 
 "That's all right," said Helena. ''But of 
 course we can't really cure them. We can get 
 them going hard enough to make them think they 
 are for awhile, but after they've thrown away 
 their crutches and got back home what then? " 
 
 "Well, what then?" inquired Doc Madison 
 easily. 
 
 " They'll yell ' fake ! ' and swear out warrants," 
 said Helena, her dark eyes studying Doc Madi- 
 son. 
 
 " Not according to statistics," replied Doc Mad- 
 ison, and his lips twitched quizzically at the cor- 
 ners. " According to statistics they'll buy another 
 crutch and come back to buck the tiger again. 
 Say, Helena, to-morrow, you go up to the public 
 library and read up on shrines they've been 
 running since the ark and they're running still. 
 You never heard any howl about them, did you? 
 What's the answer to those cures? " 
 
 " That's different," said Helena. " That's re- 
 ligion, and they've got relics and things." 
 
 " It's faith," said Doc Madison, " and it doesn't 
 matter what the basis of it is. Faith, Helena, 
 faith get that? And we're going to imbue 
 them with a faith that'll set them crazy and send 
 them into hysterics. And talk about relics 1 
 Haven't we got one? Look at the Patriarch! 
 Can't you see the whole town yelling ' I told you 
 so ! ' and swopping testimonials hard enough to
 
 42 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 crowd the print down so fine, if you tried to get 
 it all into the papers, that you'd have to use a 
 magnifying glass to read it, once we've pulled off 
 the miracle ? Don't you worry about the getaway. 
 If there's any sign of anything like that, you and I, 
 Helena, will be taking moonlight rides in the gon- 
 dolas of Venice long before it breaks." 
 
 Helena choked and began to laugh deli- 
 ciously. 
 
 Doc Madison stared at her for a moment whim- 
 sically then he, too, burst into a laugh. 
 
 "Oh, Lord!" he gurgled. "It's rich, isn't 
 it?" And sweeping Helena off the couch and 
 into his arms, he began to dance around and 
 around the table. " Ring-around-a-rosy ! " he 
 cried. " We haven't done so bad in the misty 
 past, but here's where we cross to the enchanted 
 shore and play on jewelled harps with golden 
 strings and " 
 
 "Is that all?" gasped Helena, laughing and 
 breathless, as at last she pulled herself away. 
 
 " No," panted Doc Madison. " There's a ta- 
 ble I've reserved up at the Rivoli that's waiting 
 for us now. We're about to part for days and 
 days, lady mine, that's the tough luck of it, but 
 we'll make a night of it to-night anyway 
 what?" 
 
 "You bet!" said Helena, doing a cake-walk 
 towards the door. " Come on ! "
 
 Ill 
 
 NEEDLEY 
 
 "1^ T-EEDLEY?" 
 
 ^^^ It wasn't wholly an interrogation 
 
 ^^y it seemed to Madison that there 
 
 -1*. ^ was even sympathy in the parlor-car 
 conductor's voice, as the other took his seat 
 check. 
 
 " Health," said Madison meekly. " Perfect 
 rest and quiet been overdoing it, you know." 
 
 "Needley!" the train conductor of the Bar 
 Harbor Express, collecting the transportation, 
 threw the word at Madison as though it were a 
 personal affront. 
 
 The tone seemed to demand an apology from 
 Madison and Madison apologized. 
 
 " Health," he said apologetically. " Perfect 
 rest and quiet been overdoing it, you know." 
 
 " We're five minutes late now," grunted the 
 conductor uncompromisingly and, to Madison, 
 quite irrelevantly, as he passed on down the aisle. 
 
 Somehow, this inspired Madison to consult his 
 timetable. He drew it from his pocket, ran his 
 eye down the long list of stations and stopped 
 at " Needley." Needley had an asterisk after 
 it. By consulting a block of small type at the 
 
 43
 
 44 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 bottom of the page, he found a corresponding 
 asterisk with the words : " Flag station. Stops 
 only on signal, or to discharge eastbound passen- 
 gers from Portland." 
 
 John Garfield Madison went into the smoking 
 compartment of the car for a cigar several ci- 
 gars until Needley was reached some two hours 
 later, when the dusky attendant, as he pocketed 
 Madison's dollar, set down his little rubber-topped 
 footstool with a flourish on a desolate and for- 
 bidding-looking platform. 
 
 Madison was neither surprised nor dismayed 
 the parlor-car conductor, the train conductor 
 and the timetable had in no way attempted to de- 
 ceive him he was only cold. He turned up 
 his coat collar and blew on his kid-gloved fin- 
 gers. 
 
 As far as he could see everything was white 
 with a thin layer of snow he kicked some of it 
 off his toes onto the unshovelled platform. The 
 landscape was disconsolately void of even a ves- 
 tige of life, there was not a sign of habitation 
 just woods of bare trees, except the firs, whose 
 green seemed out of place. 
 
 " I have arrived," said John Garfield Madison 
 to himself, " at a cemetery." 
 
 There was a very small station, and through the 
 window he caught sight of a harassed-faced, red- 
 haired man. There was a thump, another one, a 
 very vicious one and Madison stirred uneasily 
 * the train, with its five minutes' delinquency 
 hanging over it, was already moving out, as his
 
 NEEDLEY 45 
 
 trunks, from the baggage car ahead, shot uncere- 
 moniously to the platform. Madison watched a 
 man, the sole occupant of the platform apart from 
 himself, save the trunks from rolling under the 
 wheels of the train; then his eyes fastened on a 
 rickety, two-seated wagon, drawn by a horse that 
 at first glance appeared to earn all it got. 
 
 The train left the platform and left quite 
 as uninviting a perspective on the other side of the 
 track as had previously greeted Madison's re- 
 stricted view. But now the man who had sal- 
 vaged his baggage came down the platform to- 
 ward him. Madison inspected the approaching 
 figure with interest. The man ambled along with- 
 out haste, his jaws wagging industriously upon his 
 tobacco, his iron-gray chin whiskers, from the 
 wagging, flapping like a burgee in a breeze. He 
 wore a round fur cap, quite bare of fur at the 
 edges where the pelt showed shiny, and a red 
 woollen tippet was tied round his neck and 
 knotted at the back with the ends dangling down 
 over his coat. The coat itself, a long one of 
 some fuzzy material, with huge side pockets into 
 which the man's hands were plunged, reached to 
 the cavernous tops of jackboots where the nether 
 ends of his trousers were stowed away. 
 
 The man halted before Madison, and, reaching 
 a mittened hand under his chin, reflectively lifted 
 his whiskers to an acute angle, while his blue eyes 
 over the rims of steel-bowed spectacles wandered 
 from Madison to Madison's dress-suit case and 
 back to Madison again.
 
 46 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 " Be you goin' to git off here? " he inquired. 
 
 Madison smiled at him engagingly. 
 
 " Well," he said, " I wouldn't care to have it 
 known, but if you can keep a secret " 
 
 " Hee-hee! " tittered the other. " Now that's 
 right smart, that be. Waren't expectin' nobody 
 to meet you, was you? I ain't heerd of none of 
 the folks lookin' for visitors." 
 
 " No," said Madison. " But there's a hotel in 
 the town, isn't there? " 
 
 " Two of 'em," said the other. " The Waal- 
 derf an' the Congress, but the Waalderf ain't done 
 a sight of business since we got pro'bition in the 
 State an' has kinder got run down. I reckon the 
 Congress'll suit you best if you ain't against payin' 
 a mite more, which I reckon you ain't for I see 
 you come down in the parler car." 
 
 " And what," asked Madison, " does the Con- 
 gress charge? " 
 
 " Well," said the other, " ordinary, it's a dollar 
 a day or five dollars a week, but this bein' off sea- 
 son an' nobody there, 'twouldn't surprise me if 
 Walt 'ud kind of shade the price for you Waal- 
 derf's three an' a half a week. Them your duds 
 up the platform? I'll drive you over for forty 
 cents. What was it you said your name was?" 
 
 " Forty cents is a most disinterested offer, and 
 I accept it heartily," said Madison affably. " And 
 my name's Madison John Garfield Madison, 
 from New York." 
 
 " Mine's Higgins," volunteered the other. 
 " Hiram Higgins, an' I'm postmaster an' town
 
 NEEDLEY 47 
 
 constable of Needley. An' now, Mr. Madison, I 
 reckon we'll just get these effects of your'n onto 
 the wagon an' move along folks'll be gettin* 
 kinder rambunctious for their mail." 
 
 Hiram Higgins backed the democrat around, 
 roped the baggage onto the tail-board, picked up 
 the hungry-looking mail-bag from where the mail 
 clerk had slung it from the car to the platform, 
 threw it down in front of the dashboard, and got 
 in after it. Madison clambered into the back 
 seat, and they bumped off along the road. 
 
 " Had a mite of snow night before last," ob- 
 served Mr. Higgins, pointing it out with his whip, 
 as he settled himself comfortably. " Kinder reck- 
 oned we'd got rid of it for good till next fall till 
 this come along, but you can't never tell. What 
 was it you said brought you down here, Mr. Madi- 
 son?" 
 
 Madison smiled. 
 
 " Rest and quiet complete change," he said. 
 " Nervous breakdown, according to the doctors 
 that's what they always call it, you know, when 
 they can't find any other name for it. I've been 
 overdoing it, I suppose." 
 
 " Be that so ! " returned Mr. Higgins sympa- 
 thetically. " I want to know! Well, now, that's 
 too bad ! Lookin' for quiet, be you ? Well, I 
 reckon mabbe folks don't scurry around here quite 
 so lively as they do in some of the bigger towns 
 like Noo York, but there's a tolerable lot goin' on 
 most every week, church festivals, an' spellin' 
 bees, an' such. Folks here is right hospitable, but
 
 4 8 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 you ain't in no way obliged to join in if you don't 
 feel up to it. I'll explain matters to 'em, an' " 
 Hiram Higgins stopped, excitedly gathered reins 
 and whip into one hand, and with the other smote 
 his knee a resounding whack. " Well, I swan I " 
 he exclaimed. " An' I never thought of it until 
 this minute! I reckon you've come to just the 
 right place, and just as soon as you get settled 
 you go right out an' see the Patriarch you won't 
 need no more doctor, an' folks up your way won't 
 know when you go back." 
 
 "The Patriarch?" inquired Madison, with a 
 puzzled air. "Who is he?" 
 
 " Why," said Mr. Higgins, " he's he's the 
 Patriarch. Been curin' us folks around here 
 longer'n any one can remember just does it by 
 faith, too." 
 
 Madison shook his head slowly. 
 
 " I might juet as well be frank wjth you, Mr. 
 Higgins," he said. " I've never taken much stock 
 in faith cure and that sort of thing." 
 
 " Mabbe," suggested Mr. Higgins deeply, 
 " you ain't had much experience." 
 
 "No," confessed Madison reflectively; "I 
 haven't I haven't had any." 
 
 " W T ell then, you just wait an' see," said Mr. 
 Higgins, waving his mittened hand as though the 
 whole matter were conclusively settled. ' You 
 just wait an' see." 
 
 " But I'm afraid I don't quite understand," 
 prodded Madison innocently. " What kind of 
 cures does he perform? "
 
 NEEDLEY 49 
 
 They turned a right-angled bend in the road, 
 disclosing a straggling hamlet in a hollow below, 
 and, farther away in the distance, a sweep of 
 ocean. 
 
 " Most any kind," said Mr. Higgins. " There's 
 Needley now. All you've got to do is ask the 
 first person you see about him." 
 
 " Yes," said Madison, " but take yourself, for 
 instance. Did this Patriarch ever do anything for 
 yoH?" 
 
 u He did," said Mr. Higgins impressively. 
 " An' 'twasn't but last week. I'm glad you asked 
 me. For two nights I couldn't sleep. Had the 
 earache powerful. Poured hot oil an' laud'num 
 into it, an' kept a hot brick rolled up in flannel 
 against it, but didn't do no good. Then Mrs. Hig- 
 gins says, ' Hiram, why in the land's sake don't 
 yo go out an' see the Patriarch ? ' An' I hitched 
 right up, an' every step that horse took I could 
 feel it gettin' better, an' I wasn't five minutes with 
 the Patriarch before I was cured, an' I ain't had a 
 twinge since." 
 
 " It certainly looks as though there were some- 
 thing in that," admitted Madison cautiously. 
 
 Hiram Higgins smiled a world of tolerance. 
 
 " 'Tain't worth mentionin' alongside some of 
 the things he's done," he said deprecatingly. 
 ** You'll hear about 'em fast enough." 
 
 " What's the local doctor say about it? " asked 
 Madison. 
 
 " There ain't enough pickin's to keep a doctor 
 here, though some of 'em's tried," chuckled Mr.
 
 Higgins. " Have to have 'em for some things, 
 of course an' then he drives over from Bar- 
 ton's Mills, seven miles from here." 
 
 " And do all the people in Needley believe in 
 the Patriarch?" Madison's voice was full of 
 grave Interest. 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Higgins, " to be plumb down- 
 right honest with you, they don't. Folks as was 
 born here an' are old inhabitants do, but the 
 Holmes, bein' newcomers, is kinder set in their 
 ways. They come down here eight years ago last 
 August with new-fangled notions, which they ain't 
 got rid of yet. You can see the consequences for 
 yourself got a little boy, twelve year old, walk- 
 ing around lame on a crutch an' I reckon he 
 always will. Doctor looks at him every time he 
 comes over from Barton's Mills, but it don't do 
 no good. Folks tried to get the Holmes to take 
 him out to the Patriarch's till they got discour- 
 aged. 'Pears old man Holmes kinder got around 
 to a common sense view of it, but the women folks 
 say Mrs. Holmes is stubborner than all git-out, 
 an' that old man Holmes' voice ain't loud enough 
 to be heerd when she gets goin'. 'Tain't but fair 
 to mention 'em, as I dunno of any one else that's 
 -an exception." Mr. Higgins pointed ahead with 
 his whip. " See them woods over there beyond 
 the town? " 
 
 " Yes," said Madison. 
 
 " That's where the Patriarch lives," said Mr. 
 Higgins. " On the other side of 'em, down by 
 the seashore. An' here we be most home.
 
 NEEDLEY 51 
 
 Folks'll be glad to see you, Mr. Madison, and 
 now you're here I hope you'll make a real smart 
 stay we'll try to make you feel to home." 
 
 " Thank you," said Madison cordially. " I 
 haven't any idea, of course, how long I'll be here 
 it all depends on circumstances." 
 
 " No," said Mr. Higgins; " I don't suppose you 
 have. Anyway, I hope you'll take a notion to 
 go out an' see what the Patriarch can do for you. 
 An' now you ain't told me yet which hotel you're 
 goin' to." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Madison gravely. " Well, since 
 you recommend it, I guess we'd better make it the 
 Congress."
 
 B 
 
 IV 
 
 THE PATRIARCH 
 
 44 | ^ ET you a cookie," shrilled Hiram 
 Higgins, in what he meant to be a 
 breathless whisper, " that there's 
 where he's goin' now only he don't 
 want us to know he's give in." 
 
 " Shet your fool mouth, Hiram!" cautioned 
 Walt Perkins, the proprietor of the Congress Ho- 
 tel. " He kin hear you." 
 
 " Get out! " retorted Mr. Higgins. " No, he 
 can't neither. He ain't feelin' no ways perky, 
 any one can see that, an' I'm tickled most to pieces 
 that he's come 'round I've took up with him 
 consid'rable, I have. Patriarch'!! just make a 
 new-born critter outer him you watch through 
 the window where he goes. Bet you a quarter 
 that's what he's up to ! " 
 
 John Garfield Madison, outside on the veranda 
 of the Congress Hotel, smiled at the words, as 
 he lighted his cigar and turned up his coat collar. 
 He stepped off the veranda, crossed the little lawn 
 to the village street, and began to saunter non- 
 chalantly and indifferently oceanwards. He did 
 not look around he had no desire to bring con- 
 sternation to the massed faces of the leading citi- 
 
 52
 
 THE PATRIARCH 53 
 
 zens flattened against the window panes but he 
 chuckled inwardly as he pictured them. There 
 would be Hiram Higgins, postmaster and town 
 constable, Walt Perkins, hotel man and town mod- 
 erator, Lem Hodges, selectman, assessor and 
 overseer of the poor, Nathan Elmes, likewise se- 
 lectman, assessor and overseer of the poor, and 
 Cale Rodgers, school committee-man and propri- 
 etor of the general store. 
 
 Madison sauntered slowly along. 
 
 " I have arrived," he said, " not at a cemetery, 
 but at an El Dorado and a land flowing with milk 
 and honey." 
 
 There was a humorous pucker around the cor- 
 ners of Madison's eyes, as he reviewed his two 
 days' sojourn in Needley spent mostly in the 
 " office " of the Congress Hotel beside the stove 
 with his feet up on the woodbox. He had never 
 lacked company the office stove and the spit- 
 box filled with sawdust was the admitted rendez- 
 vous of the chosen spirits who were still gazing 
 after him from the window. Morning, afternoon 
 and evening they congregated there, and he had 
 been promptly admitted to membership in the 
 select circle. At each sitting they had discussed 
 the spring planting and the weather, and then 
 inevitably, led by Hiram Higgins, had resolved 
 themselves into an " experience " meeting on the 
 Patriarch he, Madison, as a minority leader of 
 one, grudgingly conceding an occasional point. 
 The sessions had invariably ended the same way 
 Hiram Higgins, with the back of his hand
 
 54 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 underneath his chin, would stroke earnestly at his 
 chin-whiskers, and remark: 
 
 " Well, now, Mr. Madison, 'twon't do you a 
 mite of harm to go out there an' see for yourself. 
 We've kinder got to look on you as one of 
 us, an' there ain't no use in you sufferin' around 
 with what ails you when there ain't no need of 
 it." 
 
 Madison's replies had been equally void of ver- 
 satility he would shake his head doubtfully, 
 while his cigar-case circulated around the group. 
 
 Madison sniffed luxuriously at his thorough- 
 bred Havana. He had passed out of sight of the 
 hotel window now, and he swung into a brisk walk. 
 It was a mile to the Patriarch's by a wagon track 
 through the woods, that led off from the road to 
 the left just across the bridge. He had not 
 needed to ask directions. With magnificent inad- 
 vertence Hiram Higgins had mentioned the exact 
 way to reach the Patriarch's a dozen times, if he 
 had once. Also, by now, Madison had learned 
 all that the town knew about the Patriarch 
 which after all, he reflected with some satisfaction, 
 wasn't much. Xlie Patriarch was over eighty 
 years of age, and he had come, deaf and dumb, to 
 Needley sixty years ago nobody knew from 
 where, nor his previous history, nor his name. 
 They had called him the Hermit at first, for hn- 
 mediately on his arrival he had gone out to the 
 shore of the ocean, away from the village, and 
 built a crude hut there for himself which, in the 
 after years, he had made into a more pretentious
 
 THE PATRIARCH 55 
 
 dwelling. The cures had come " kinder gradual- 
 like an' took the folks mabbe forty years to get 
 around to believin' in him real serious," as Hiram 
 Higgins put it; and then, as the Hermit grew old, 
 and the local reverence for him had become more 
 deep-seated, they had changed his name to the 
 Patriarch. That was about all but it seemed 
 to suit Madison, for his smile broadened. 
 
 " I wonder," said he to himself, as he stepped 
 onto the bridge to cross the little river, " if I'm 
 not dreaming this is like being let loose in the 
 U. S. Treasury with nobody looking! " 
 
 "Hullo, mister!" piped a young voice sud- 
 denly out of the dusk. 
 
 " Hullo ! " responded Madison mechanically 
 and turned to watch a small figure, going in the 
 opposite direction, thump by him on a crutch. 
 Madison stopped and stared after the cripple 
 and removed his cigar very slowly from his lips. 
 " That's that Holmes boy," he muttered. " I 
 don't know as he'd look well on the platform when 
 the excursion trains get to running. Wonder if 
 I can't get a job for his father somewhere about 
 a thousand miles from here and have the family 
 move! " 
 
 The cripple disappeared down the road, and 
 Madison, with a sort of speculative flip to the 
 ash of his cigar, resumed his way. Just across 
 the bridge he found the wagon track, and turned 
 into it. It ran through a thick wood of fir and 
 spruce, and here, apart from now being able to 
 see but little before him he had elected to
 
 56 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 " steal " away in the darkness after supper le 
 found the going far from good. 
 
 Half curiously, half whimsically, he tried to 
 visualize the Patriarch from the word pictures 
 that had been painted around the stove in the hotel 
 office. The man would be old of course. 
 And to have lived alone for sixty years, to have 
 shunned human companionship he must have been 
 either mildly or violently insane to begin with, 
 which would account for his belief in himself as a 
 healer he would unquestionably, in some form 
 or other, " have bats in his belfry," as Pale Face 
 Harry had put it. 
 
 Madison's brows contracted as he went along. 
 A man living by himself under such conditions, 
 with no incentive for the care of his person, not 
 even the pride engendered by the association of 
 others, erudite as the standard might be in his 
 vicinity, was apt to grow very shortly into a some- 
 what sorry spectacle. Give him sixty years of this 
 and add an unbalanced mind, and Madison did 
 not like the picture that now rose up suddenly 
 before him a creature, bent, vapid of face, deaf 
 and dumb, frowsy of dress, and a world removed 
 from the thought of a morning bath. It might 
 be picturesque in a way but it wasn't a way 
 Madison liked. Somehow, he'd have to jerk the 
 old chap out of his rut and get him rigged up a 
 little more becomingly, before the trusting public, 
 simple as they were, were invited down to see 
 the exhibit. Madison's dramatic instinct, which 
 was developed to a keen sense of what the public
 
 THE PATRIARCH 57 
 
 craved for, rebelled against any faux pas in the 
 scenic effects. He fell to designing a costume that 
 would more appropriately expound the role. 
 
 " Got to give 'em something for their money," 
 murmured John Garfield Madison. " Some sort 
 of long, flowing robe now, washed every day, sort 
 of Grecian effect with a rope girdle, bare feet and 
 sandals um-m dunno about the sandals 
 don't want to slop over, and besides " Madison 
 grinned a little to himself " he might kick ! " 
 
 Still reflecting, but arrived at no conclusion 
 other than first to size up the Patriarch and see 
 how best to handle him, Madison reached the end 
 of the wagon track and halted. 
 
 It was a little lighter here, now that he had left 
 the woods, and what appeared to be a sweep of 
 snow-covered lawn was before him. Around this, 
 forming a perfect square, was a row of full-grown, 
 magnificent maples a regal hedge, as it were, 
 bordering the four sides planted sixty years 
 ago ! Madison's imagination fired exhilarantly at 
 the inspiring thought of these in leaf in another 
 few weeks. He shook hands with himself cor- 
 dially. 
 
 " Behold the amphitheater! " he said. " This 
 is where we stage the greatest act of the cen- 
 tury!" 
 
 Behind the row of trees, directly across the 
 lawn in front of him, loomed the dark shadow of 
 a long, low, cottage-like building, and from a win- 
 dow a light twinkled out between the tree trunks; 
 while from beyond again came the roll of surf,
 
 5 8 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 low, rhythmic, like the soft accompaniment of 
 orchestral music. 
 
 " Wonderful ! " breathed Madison. " I feel," 
 said he, " as though I had just had a drink 1 " 
 
 He walked across the lawn, passed between the 
 trees, and reached the end of the cottage away 
 from where the light showed in the window. 
 
 " The Patriarch being deaf," he remarked, " I 
 might as well explore." 
 
 From the row of trees to the cottage was per- 
 haps twenty feet. The door of the cottage, 
 porticoed with trellis-work, was in the center of 
 the cottage itself. Everywhere Madison turned 
 were trellis-work frames for flowers the walls 
 of the cottage were covered, literally covered, with 
 bare, slumbering shoots of Virginia creeper. In 
 a little while now the place would be a veritable 
 paradise. Madison raised his hat reverently. 
 
 " Fancy this on a New York stage ! " said he 
 esthetically, invoking the universe. " Could you 
 beat it! I could play the Patriarch myself with 
 this setting, and everybody would fall for it. 
 There's nothing to it, nothing to it, but his 
 make-up and I'll guarantee to take care of that. 
 And now we'll have a look at Aladdin's lamp and 
 see just what kind of rubbing up will invoke the 
 genii ! " 
 
 Madison walked along the length of the cot- 
 tage, past the door, and, as he reached the lighted 
 window, drew well away from the wall and 
 stared inside. Surprise and incredulity swept 
 across his features, and then his face beamed and
 
 THE PATRIARCH 59 
 
 his gray eyes lighted with the fire of an artist who 
 sees the elusive imagery of the Great Picture at 
 last transferred to canvas, vivid, actual, transcend- 
 ing his wildest hopes. He was gazing upon the 
 sweetest and most venerable face he had ever 
 seen. 
 
 Here and there within upon the floor were 
 strewn old-fashioned, round rag mats that would 
 enrapture a connoisseur, and the floor where it 
 showed between the mats was scrubbed to a glis- 
 tening white. The furnishings were few and 
 homemade, but full of simple artistry a chair 
 or two, and a table, upon which burned a lamp. 
 In a fireplace, made of stones cemented together, 
 the natural effect unspoiled by any attempt to hew 
 the stones into uniformity, a log fire glowed, sput- 
 tered, and now and then leaped cheerily into flame. 
 
 Between the table and the fire, half turned to- 
 ward Madison, sat the Patriarch. He was read- 
 ing, his head bent forward, his book held very 
 close to his eyes. Hair, a wealth of it, soft, silky 
 and snow-white, reached just below his coat col- 
 lar a silvery beard fell far below his book. 
 But it was the face itself, no single distinguishing 
 feature, neither the blue eyes, the sensitive lips, 
 nor the broad, fine forehead, that held Madison's 
 gaze it seemed to combine something that he 
 had never seen in a face before, and to look upon 
 it was to be drawn instantly to the man there 
 was purity of thought and act stamped upon it 
 with a seal ineffaceable, and there was gentleness 
 there, and sympathy, and trust, and a simple, un-
 
 60 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 assuming dignity and self-possession and, too, 
 there was a shadow there, a little of sadness, a 
 little of weariness, a background, a relief, as it 
 were, a touch such as a genius might conceive to 
 lift the picture with his brush into wondrous, lin- 
 gering, haunting consonance. 
 
 Madison's eyes, slowly, as though loath to 
 leave the Patriarch's face, travelled over the gray 
 homespun suit that clothed the man, the white 
 wristbands of the home-washed shirt, unstarched, 
 but spotlessly clean and his fancy of flowing, 
 Grecian robes with rope girdles seemed to hold 
 him up to mockery as a crude and paltry bungler 
 before the perfect, unostentatious harmony of re- 
 aHty. 
 
 '' There's nothing to it ! " whispered Madison 
 softly to himself. " Nothing to it! There isn't 
 a thing left to do not even a chance of making 
 a bluff at earning the money it's just like steal- 
 ing it. Why, say, it would get me if I weren't 
 behind the scenes honest now, it would ! " 
 
 Madison drew back from the window and 
 walked toward the door of the cottage. 
 
 " It should take me about fifteen minutes to 
 establish myself on the basis of a long-lost son 
 with the Patriarch clinging confidingly around my 
 neck," he observed. " If it takes me any longer 
 than that I'd feel depressed every time I met my- 
 self in the looking-glass." 
 
 He reached the cottage door, and, lifting the 
 brass knocker that shone dimly in the darkness,
 
 THE PATRIARCH 61 
 
 knocked once, lifted it to knock again and his 
 hand fell away as he smiled a little foolishly. 
 
 ' I forgot the Patriarch was deaf," he mut- 
 tered. " Wonder what you're supposed to do ? 
 Walk right in, or " 
 
 The door swung suddenly wide open, and upon 
 Madison's face, usually so perfectly at its owner's 
 control, came a look of stunned surprise. The 
 Patriarch was standing on the threshold, and, with 
 a gesture of welcome, was motioning him to enter.
 
 y 
 
 A STRANGE CONVERSATION 
 
 MADISON, quite in command of him- 
 self again in an instant, stepped, 
 smiling, into the cottage. He took 
 the Patriarch's extended hand in a 
 cordial grip and nodded understandingly as the 
 other, with quick, rapid motions, touched lips and 
 ears to signify that he could neither hear nor 
 speak. But, inwardly puzzled, Madison searched 
 the Patriarch's face was the other playing a 
 part? Could he hear, after all and perhaps 
 speak as well, if he wanted to ! There was cer- 
 tainly no guile in the venerable, gentle face or 
 was it guile of a very high order? 
 
 The Patriarch closed the door, and drawing his 
 own armchair to the table offered it to Madison 
 with a courteous smile. 
 
 Madison refused by gently forcing the old man 
 into it himself, pulled another up to face the Pa- 
 triarch, sat down and his eyes fixed suddenly 
 on the ceiling above his head. Swaying slowly 
 back and forth was a sort of miniature punkah of 
 waving white canvas. He studied this for a mo- 
 ment, then his eyes shifted to the Patriarch, who 
 was regarding him humorously. 
 
 The Patriarch rose from his chair, walked to
 
 A STRANGE CONVERSATION 63 
 
 the door, opened it, moved the knocker up and 
 down and pointed to the ceiling. The canvas 
 was waving violently now, and Madison traced 
 the cord attachment, on little pulleys, across the 
 ceiling to where it ran through the door and was 
 affixed to the knocker without. It was very sim- 
 ple, even primitive every time the knocker was 
 lifted the cord was pulled and the canvas waved 
 back and forth. Madison nodded his head and 
 smiled approvingly, as the Patriarch once more 
 closed the door and resumed his seat. 
 
 Madison leaned back in his chair and allowed 
 his eyes to stray, not impertinently but with 
 pleased endorsement, around the room, to permit 
 an unhampered opportunity for the scrutiny of the 
 blue eyes which he felt upon him. 
 
 " And to think," he mused reproachfully, " that 
 I could have doubted him for a single instant > 
 he certainly hung one on me that time." 
 
 The Patriarch reached into the drawer of the 
 table beside him, took out a slate and pencil, 
 scratched a few words on the slate and handed 
 both pencil and slate to Madison. 
 
 "Your name is Madison, isn't it?" Madison 
 read. " From New York? Hiram told me 
 about you." 
 
 " Hiram," said Madison to himself, " is a man 
 of many parts, and the most useful man I have 
 ever known. Hiram, by reflected glory, will 
 some day become famous." On the slate he re- 
 plied: " Yes ; that is my name John Madison- 
 It was good of Mr. Higgins to speak of me."
 
 6 4 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 The Patriarch held the slate within a bare inch 
 or two of his face, and moved it back and forth 
 before his eyes to follow the lines. As he low- 
 ered it, Madison reached for it politely. 
 
 " I am afraid you do not see very well," he 
 scribbled. " Shall I write larger?" 
 
 Again the Patriarch deciphered the words la- 
 boriously; then he wrote, and handed the slate to 
 Madison. 
 
 " I am going blind," he had written. " Please 
 write as large as possible." 
 
 " Blind! " Madison's attitude and expression 
 were eloquent enough not only to be a perfect in- 
 terpretation of his exclamation, but to convey his 
 shocked and pained surprise as well. 
 
 The Patriarch bowed his head affirmatively, 
 smiling a little wistfully. 
 
 Madison impetuously drew his chair closer 
 to the other, laid his hand sympathetically upon 
 the Patriarch's sleeve, and, with the slate 
 upon his knee, wrote with the other hand impul- 
 sively : 
 
 " I am sorry very, very sorry. Would you 
 care to tell me about it? " 
 
 The Patriarch's face lighted up while reading 
 the slate, but he shook his head slowly as he smiled 
 again. 
 
 " By and by, if you wish," he wrote. " But 
 first about yourself. You are sick and you 
 have come to me for help ? " 
 
 The slate now passed from hand to hand quite 
 rapidly.
 
 A STRANGE CONVERSATION 65 
 
 " Yes," wrote Madison. " Can you cure 
 me?" 
 
 "No," replied the Patriarch; "not in your 
 present mental condition." 
 
 " What do you mean? " asked Madison. 
 
 " Your question itself implies that you are skep- 
 tical. While that state of mind exists, I can do 
 nothing it depends entirely on yourself." 
 
 "And if I put skepticism aside?" Madison's 
 pencil demanded. " Can you cure me then? " 
 
 " Unquestionably," wrote the Patriarch, " if 
 you really put it aside. Faith is the simplest 
 thing in the world and the most complex but it 
 is fundamental. Without faith nothing is possi- 
 ble; with faith nothing is impossible." 
 
 Madison's gray eyes rested, magnificently 
 thoughtful and troubled, upon the Patriarch. 
 
 " I have never thought much about it," he re- 
 plied upon the slate, after a tactful moment's 
 pause. " But I believe that. There is something 
 here, about the place, about you that inspires con- 
 fidence I was prepared to cling to my skepticism 
 when I came in, but I do not feel that way now. 
 If only I knew you a little better, were with you a 
 little more, I believe I could have the faith you 
 speak of." 
 
 "How long do you remain in Needley?" the 
 Patriarch wrote. 
 
 'Madison got up from his chair, went slowly to 
 the fireplace, and, with his back to the Patriarch, 
 stood watching the crackling logs. 
 
 " The old chap's no fool," he informed himself,
 
 66 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 " even if he is gone a little in one particular. He 
 certainly does believe in himself for fair! Won- 
 der where he got his education notice the Eng- 
 lish he writes? And, say going blind! Fancy 
 that! Santa Claus, you overwhelm me, you are 
 too bountiful, you are too generous you'll have 
 nothing left for the next chimney! Deaf and 
 dumb and blind. Really, I do not deserve this 
 I really don't let me at least tip the hat-boy, 
 or I'll feel mean." 
 
 He turned gravely to the Patriarch; resuming 
 his chair with an expression on his face as one ar- 
 rived at a weighty decision after a mental battle 
 with one's self. 
 
 " I will stay here until I am cured. I put my- 
 self in your hands. What am I to do? " he wrote 
 quickly and held out his hand almost anxiously 
 for the other's assent. 
 
 The Patriarch smiled seriously as, after peer- 
 ing at the slate, he took the outstretched hand and 
 laid his other one unaffectedly upon Madison's 
 shoulder. 
 
 " Be sure then that I can help you," wrote the 
 Patriarch cheerfully. " There is no course of 
 treatment such as you may, perhaps, imagine. 
 My power lies in a perfect faith to help you once 
 'you, in turn, have faith yourself that is all. It 
 is but the practical application of the old dogma 
 that mind is superior to matter. You must come 
 and see me every day, and we will talk together." 
 
 " I will come gladly," Madison replied; and, 
 taking the slate, carefully wiped off the writing
 
 A STRANGE CONVERSATION 67 
 
 as he had previously wiped it off every time it 
 came into his hands with a damp rag that the 
 Patriarch had taken from the table drawer when 
 he had produced the slate and pencil. 
 
 ; ' This slate racket is the limit," said Madison I 
 to himself, as his pencil began to move and screech! 
 again; "but I've got to get a little deeper under 
 his vest yet." 
 
 He handed the slate to the Patriarch, and on it 
 were the words: 
 
 " Won't you tell me something of yourself, how 
 you came to live here alone, and your name, per- 
 haps? 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 an- 
 swer? " 
 
 " No, indeed! " said Madison politely to him- 
 self. " 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
 
 68 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 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 re- 
 ceived 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."
 
 A STRANGE CONVERSATION 69 
 
 " 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 some- 
 thing about his ' sight failing,' but I didn't think 
 it was anything like this. If he's going to go fi- 
 nally 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. 
 
 Madison held the slate in his hands for quite a 
 long time before he wrote again; his attitude one 
 of sympathetic hesitancy as his eyes played over 
 the form and face before him, while the Patriarch 
 smiled at him with gentle, patient resignation. 
 Back in Madison's fertile brain the germ of an in- 
 spiration was developing into fuller life. 
 
 " What will you do here alone when you are 
 blind?" he asked and his face was disturbed 
 and solicitous as he passed the Patriarch the slate. 
 
 " I need very little," the Patriarch wrote back. 
 " You must not worry about me. My garden 
 supplies nearly all my wants, and there are many 
 in the village, I am sure, who will help me with 
 that when the snow is gone."
 
 ,70 
 
 " I am quite certain of that," Madison's pencil 
 agreed. " But here in the house you cannot be 
 alone there are so many things to do, little 
 things that I am sure you have not thought of 
 some one must cook for you, for instance. You 
 will need a woman's hand here have you no 
 one, no relative that you can call upon? " 
 
 The Patriarch lowered the slate from his eyes, 
 shook his head a little pathetically, and began to 
 write. 
 
 " I do not think they would have cared to come, 
 even if they were still alive; but they are all gone 
 many years ago except perhaps a grand-niece, 
 and I do not know what has become of her." 
 
 ' Why, that's just the thing," wrote Madison. 
 " Suppose we try to find her? " 
 
 Again the Patriarch shook his head. 
 
 *" I am afraid that would be impossible. I do 
 not even know that she is alive. I know only 
 of her birth, and that is twenty years ago." 
 
 " Even that is not hopeless," wrote Madison 
 optimistically, and his face as he looked at the Pa- 
 triarch was seriously thoughtful. " Where was 
 she born? " 
 
 " New York," the Patriarch answered. 
 
 " And I never half appreciated the old town 
 nor the fulness thereof until I came to Needley ! " 
 said Madison plaintively to the toe of his boot, 
 while his hand scrawled the inquiry: "What is 
 her name? " 
 
 ' Vail," wrote the Patriarch. " That was her 
 father's name. She is my grand-niece on her
 
 A STRANGE CONVERSATION 71 
 
 mother's side. I do not know what they chris- 
 tened her." 
 
 Madison once more, apparently deep in 
 thought, sought refuge at the fireplace, his hands 
 plunged in his pockets, his shoulders drawn a lit- 
 tle forward, his back to the Patriarch. 
 
 " Fiction," he assured a crack in the cement be- 
 tween two stones, " was never, never like this. 
 It seems to me that I remember the occurrence. It 
 had grown a little dim with the lapse of time, it 
 is true; but now that I recall it, it comes back with 
 remarkable clearness. I am quite sure they chris- 
 tened her Helena. Helena Vail! Now isn't 
 that a perfectly lovely name for a novel! And 
 she'll be so good to the dear old chap too wash- 
 ing and ironing and cooking for him and steal- 
 ing out into the woodshed for a drag on her cig- 
 arette not. No, my dear, not even that 
 this is serious business." 
 
 He turned, came back to his chair, picked up 
 the slate, and wrote : 
 
 " I have the fortune, or misfortune perhaps, to 
 be what is commonly called a rich man. Money, 
 they say, will do anything, and if it will I'll find 
 this niece for you." 
 
 The Patriarch's eyes grew moist as he read the 
 words, and his hand trembled a little with emotion 
 as he held the pencil. 
 
 " I cannot let you do that," he protested. 
 ' You are very kind, and it seems almost as 
 though you had been brought to me providen- 
 tially *t the end of long years of loneliness for a
 
 72 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 purpose, when my hour of helplessness was near; 
 but, indeed, I have no right to allow you to do 
 this." 
 
 " They tell me in the village," wrote Madison 
 in reply, " that you have always refused to accept 
 a penny for anything you have ever done for them. 
 I have no doubt you would equally refuse to ac- 
 cept anything from me for what you may do, and 
 I should hesitate to offer it however much I felt 
 indebted, but this is something that you must let 
 me do. It will make me feel more how shall 
 I say it? more as though I had a right to the 
 privilege of coming here." 
 
 The Patriarch wiped his still moist eyes before 
 he answered. 
 
 'What can I say to you? It does not seem 
 right that I should let a stranger do so much, and 
 yet it seems that I should not say no because " 
 
 Madison was bending over the slate, reading 
 as the other wrote, and he took the pencil gently 
 from the Patriarch's hand. 
 
 " You must not look on me any longer as a 
 stranger," he wrote. " Let us just consider that 
 it is all arranged only I would strongly advise 
 making no mention of it until we make sure that 
 she is alive." 
 
 " I think nothing should be said," agreed the 
 Patriarch. " For even if you found her she might 
 not care to come I have little here to offer a 
 young girl few comforts the care of a blind 
 man who is deaf and dumb." 
 
 " We'll see about that when we find her "
 
 A STRANGE CONVERSATION 73 
 
 Madison smiled brightly at the Patriarch, as he 
 wrote. " Now that's settled for the time being, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 The dumb lips moved and both hands reached 
 out to Madison. 
 
 Madison took them in a firm, strong, reassuring 
 clasp, then shook his finger in a sort of playfully 
 emotional embarrassment, excellently well done, 
 at the Patriarch and picked up the slate again. 
 
 " It is getting late," he wrote, " and I must not 
 tire you out. I am afraid you will think I am far 
 more inquisitive than I have any right to be, but 
 there is one more question that I would like to ask 
 may I?" ' 
 
 The Patriarch nodded his head, and laid his 
 hand on Madison's sleeve in a quaint, almost af- 
 fectionate way. 
 
 " It is about your education. You came here 
 sixty years ago, and you have lived alone. You 
 could have had but few advantages, with your 
 handicap, previous to that, and yet you write and 
 use such perfect English." 
 
 " The answer is very simple," replied the Pa- 
 triarch on the slate. " Until within the last year, 
 I have read largely. Would you care to look at 
 my books? They are there in the nook on the 
 other side of the fireplace." 
 
 Madison, promptly and full of interest, rose 
 from his chair, passed around the fireplace, and 
 halted before a row of shelves set in against the 
 wall. 
 
 " I pass," Madison admitted to himself after a
 
 74 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 moment, during which his eyes roved over the 
 well chosen classics. " I've heard of one or two 
 of these before casually. I've an idea that if 
 the Patriarch's got all this inside his gray mat- 
 ter, it's just as well for the Flopper, for Pale Face 
 Harry, hr Helena and yours truly that he's deaf 
 and dumb and will be blind." 
 
 Madison came back to the Patriarch with beam- 
 ing face, and picked up the slate. 
 
 " I read a great deal myself," he wrote. " It 
 is a pleasure to find real books here. May I, dur- 
 ing my stay in Needley, look upon them in a little 
 way as my own library? " 
 
 " You are vtry welcome indeed," the Patriarch 
 answered. 
 
 " Thank you, vr * wrote Madison. " And now, 
 surely, I must go w - he smiled at the Patriarch. 
 
 " Come to-morrow," invited the Patriarch. " I 
 would like to show you all around my little place 
 here." 
 
 " Indeed, I will," Madison scratched upon the 
 slate, " and do you know that somehow, since I 
 came here to-night, I feel a sense of relief, a sort 
 of guarantee that everything is going to be all 
 right with me in the future." 
 
 The Patriarch smiled quietly, almost tolerantly. 
 
 " I know that," he wrote. " Keep your mind 
 free of doubt, be optimistic and cheerful as re- 
 gards yourself, nourish the faith that has already 
 taken root and that I feel responds to mine ; keep 
 in the open air and take plenty of exercise." 
 Slowly, with an apparently abstracted air, Mad-
 
 A STRANGE CONVERSATION 7^ 
 
 ison read the slate, wiped it carefully, laid it down, 
 and then held out his hand. 
 
 " Good-night ! " he nodded warmly. 
 
 The Patriarch, still with the quiet smile upon 
 his lips, rose from his armchair, and, keeping his 
 clasp on Madison's hand, led Madison to the 
 door, opened it, and with a gesture at once courtly 
 and affectionate bade his guest good-night. 
 
 Madison crossed the lawn at a thoughtful pace, 
 turned into the wagon track, and, in the shelter of 
 the woods now, whimsically felt his pulse; then, 
 lighting a cigar, tramped on with a buoyant stride. 
 
 " There's only one answer, of course," he 
 mused. " The Patriarch's got a brain kink on 
 faith it's the natural outcome of living alone 
 for sixty years. Outside of that and his books, 
 he's as simple and innocent and trusting as a babe. 
 I suppose the thing's kind of grown on him 
 Hiram said it had taken forty years which 
 isn't sudden unless you say it quick. Hanged if 
 I don't like the old sport though, and if Helena 
 isn't the best ever to him I'll stop her chewing gum 
 allowance." Madison looked up through the 
 arched, leafless branches overhead. " Beautiful 
 night, isn't it? " said he pleasantly. 
 
 A little later he reached the main road and 
 paused a moment on the bridge, as though to sum 
 up the thoughts and imaginings that had occupied 
 him on the way along. 
 
 " It's a queer world," said John Garfield Mad- 
 ison profoundly to the turbid little stream that 
 flowed beneath his feet. " I wonder why some
 
 76 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 of us are born with brains and some are born 
 just plain damned fools! " 
 
 He went on again, arrived at the Congress Ho- 
 tel, and, discovering through the window that the 
 leading citizens of Needley were still in session, 
 negotiated the back entrance. On the way up- 
 stairs he stumbled quite inadvertently and 
 stopped to listen. 
 
 " There he be now," announced Hiram Hig- 
 gins' voice excitedly. " Coin' up to his room to 
 meditate. Knew he'd come back feelin' like that. 
 I be goin' out there to-morrow to see the Patriarch 
 myself." 
 
 Madison smiled, mounted the remaining stairs, 
 entered his room, and lighted his lamp. 
 
 " Having got my hand in at writing," he re- 
 marked, " I guess I'd better keep it up and write 
 Helena Vail." 
 
 He extracted a pad of writing paper and an 
 envelope from the tray of his trunk, his fountain 
 pen from his pocket, and, drawing his chair to the 
 table and laying down his cigar reluctantly at his 
 elbow, began to write. At the end of fifteen min- 
 utes, he tilted back his chair, relighted the stub of 
 his cigar, and critically read over his epistle. 
 
 " Dear Kid," it ran. " Do not be anxious 
 about me I am feeling better already. Have 
 had my first treatment, and am now eating fried 
 eggs and ham regularly three times a day. A 
 Sunday-school picnic taking to washboilers full of 
 thin coffee and the left-over cakes kindly contrib- 
 uted by Deacon Jones' household, is nothing to
 
 A STRANGE CONVERSATION 77 
 
 the way the boobs will take to the Patriarch 
 who has kindly consented to go blind to make our 
 thorny paths as smooth as possible for us. 
 
 " Do you get that, Helena he's going blind 1 
 In just a few days, my dear, you will be with me, 
 have patience. The meteorological bureau is a 
 little hazy yet on the exact date of the total eclipse, 
 but it's due to happen any minute. Now listen. 
 Your name is Helena Vail. You're the Patri- 
 arch's grand-niece, and you're coming to live alone 
 with him and soothe his declining years; but you 
 can't come yet because I've got to find you first, 
 and besides, until he's blind, he'll stick to a nasty 
 habit he's got of asking questions on his little 
 slate. You needn't have any hesitation about 
 coming on the score of propriety, I assure you it 
 is perfectly proper he is running Methuselah 
 pretty near a dead heat. And, as far as the town 
 is concerned, apart from the fact that you are a 
 grand-niece, orphaned, you don't have to know 
 anything about yourself, either that's part of 
 the Patriarch's dark, mysterious past, where the 
 lights go out and the fiddles get rickets. 
 
 " That's about all. I'll let you know when to 
 come. Remember me to Mr. Coogan and Harry, 
 and keep my picture under your pillow. Ever 
 thine, J. G. M." 
 
 Madison picked up his pen again and added an- 
 other line: 
 
 " P.S. Better buy a cook-book." 
 
 He folded the pages, inserted them in the en- 
 velope, sealed the envelope and addressed it to
 
 78 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 Miss Helena Smith street and number not far 
 from the tenderloin district of New York. 
 
 Then Madison yawned pleasantly, tucked the 
 letter in his pocket - and prepared for bed.
 
 VI 
 
 OFFICIALLY ENDORSED 
 
 I 
 
 had passed, bringing with them 
 many changes. The snow was gone, 
 and the warm, balmy airs of springtime 
 had brought the buds upon the trees 
 almost to leaf. It seemed indeed a new land, and 
 one now full of charm and delight the desolate, 
 straggling hamlet, once so barren, frozen and 
 hopeless looking, was now a quaint, alluring little 
 village nestling picturesquely in its hollow, framed 
 in green fields and majestic woods. Quiet, rest- 
 ful, peaceful it was like a dream place, untrou- 
 bled. Upon the farms about men plowed their 
 furrows, calling to each other and to their horses ; 
 in the homes the doors and windows were thrown 
 hospitably wide to the sweet, fresh, vernal airs, 
 and the thrifty housewives were busy at their 
 cleaning. 
 
 And there had been other changes, too. The 
 ten days had found Madison more and more a 
 constant visitor, and finally a most intimate one, 
 at the Patriarch's cottage while to the circle in 
 the hotel office his voice no longer rose in even 
 feeble protest, he was one of them. And, per- 
 haps most vital change of all, the Patriarch was 
 nearly blind so nearly blind that conversation 
 
 79
 
 8o THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 now was limited to but little more than a single 
 word at a time upon the slate. 
 
 It was morning, in the Patriarch's sitting-room, 
 and Madison was seated in his usual place beside 
 the table facing the other. For upwards of an 
 hour, it had taken him that long, he had been en- 
 gaged, having decided that the time was ripe, in 
 telling the Patriarch that his grand-niece had been 
 found and that now it was only necessary to write 
 and ask her to come to Needley. 
 
 The Patriarch's fine old face was aglow with 
 pleasure as he finally understood. Letter writing 
 was beyond him now, a thing of the past, so upon 
 the slate he scrawled: 
 
 " You write." 
 
 Madison shook his head; and again with gentle 
 patience explained that perhaps it would be better 
 if the letter came from some one holding an offi- 
 cial position in the village, rather than from one 
 who, even in an abstract way, would be unknown 
 to her the postmaster, for instance. 
 
 And the Patriarch, patting Madison's sleeve 
 gratefully, agreed. 
 
 Out in the garden behind the cottage, where 
 for the first time in sixty seasons the work must 
 be done by other hands, Hiram Higgins, the vol- 
 unteer for the moment, was busy at his " spell." 
 
 Madison stepped to the door and called him in. 
 
 " Mr. Higgins," he said, " the Patriarch has 
 just told me that he has a grand-niece living in 
 New York, and he wants you to write to her and 
 ask her to come to him."
 
 OFFICIALLY ENDORSED 81 
 
 " Be that so! " exclaimed Mr. Higgins, gazing 
 earnestly at the Patriarch. " Well, 'tain't no sur- 
 prise to me always calc'lated he must have 
 folks somewheres. An' I'm right glad now he 
 needs 'em he's made up his mind to have 'em come. 
 Wants me to write, does he? " 
 
 " He can't write any more himself," said Mad- 
 ison. " He seems to think that you, as the post- 
 master, as well as the town police official, are the 
 proper person to do it and I quite agree with- 
 him." 
 
 " So I be," declared Mr. Higgins importantly. 
 " I'll write it on the town paper, an' comin' from 
 the postmaster there won't be no doubt in her 
 mind that it's any of them bunco games or the 
 lurin' of young women away such as I've read 
 about, for I reckon perhaps she ain't never heerd 
 of him before never knew him to write a letter, 
 an' I calc'late to see most everything that goes 
 out." 
 
 Mr. Higgins picked up the slate and wrote the 
 word "grand-niece?" upon it in enormous char- 
 acters; then, amplifying his interrogation by many 
 gestures of his hands, deft from long practice, he 
 held the slate up to the Patriarch. 
 
 The Patriarch nodded, and Hiram Higgins 
 nodded back encouragingly. 
 
 "Where be her address?" Mr. Higgins in- 
 quired of Madison. 
 
 Madison stepped to the bookshelves out of 
 view of the Patriarch around the fireplace, but in 
 full view of Mr. Higgins, and, reaching down the
 
 82 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 Bible from the topmost shelf, extracted from in- 
 side its cover the aged, yellow slip of paper that 
 he had deposited there when he had entered the 
 cottage that morning, and on which was inscribed 
 Helena's name and address in a stiff, old-fash- 
 ioned, angular hand resembling the Patriarch's 
 an effect that Madison had stayed up half the 
 night to produce. 
 
 " I guess this must be it," he said. " He said 
 it was here we'll make sure though " and he 
 handed it to the Patriarch. 
 
 Long and painfully the Patriarch studied it, 
 anxiously deciphering the words that he had never 
 seen before, anxious to know all and whatever 
 this might tell him about his niece then again 
 he nodded his head and expressed his gratitude by 
 patting Madison's sleeve. 
 
 Madison's smile modestly disavowed any 
 thanks, as he passed the slip to Mr. Higgins. 
 
 " Reckon that be it," Mr. Higgins agreed. 
 " An' now, I guess I'll go right back to town an' 
 write it I allow that the sooner we get her down 
 here the better. Folks'll be glad to hear this 
 the women folks was figurin' on takin' spells an' 
 helpin' out in the house same as the men in the 
 garden 'pears now there won't be no need of 
 it." 
 
 Madison accompanied Mr. Higgins outside and 
 helped him to harness up. 
 
 " Look here, Mr. Madison," said Hiram Hig- 
 gins, as he made ready to go and climbed into the 
 democrat, " would you allow that the Patriarch's
 
 OFFICIALLY ENDORSED 83 
 
 goin' blind was goin' to interfere any with his 
 power of curin' folks? It'll be a powerful blow 
 to the town if it does." 
 
 " Why, of course not ! " said Madison deci- 
 sively. " Certainly not ! Indeed, I wouldn't be 
 surprised if it enhanced his power it's purely 
 mental, you know. They say that the loss of any 
 one or more of the senses generally tends to make 
 the others only the more acute it's the er 
 law of compensation." 
 
 " Glad to hear you say so," said Mr. Higgins, 
 with a sigh of relief, " 'cause I got another letter 
 to write 'sides this one for the Patriarch. It come 
 last night, an' I was figurin' on speakin' to you 
 about it." Mr. Higgins dropped the reins on 
 the dashboard, and dove into first one pocket and 
 then another. " Shucks ! " said he disgustedly. 
 " Now if I ain't gone an' left it to home after all. 
 But I dunno as it makes much difference. It was 
 from a fellow up your way by the name of Mi- 
 chael Coogan, an' was addressed to the postmas- 
 ter. 'Pears he read a piece in the papers about 
 the Patriarch which he sent along with the letter. 
 Allows he's been ailin' quite a spell, though he 
 don't say what's the matter with him, an' wants 
 to know if what's in that piece is all gospel truth, 
 'cause if 'tis he's comin' down. That's why I'm 
 right glad to have heerd you say what you just 
 said. Bein' postmaster an' writin' 'fficially, I got 
 to be conscientious and pretty partic'lar." 
 
 ' Yes, of course naturally," said Madison^ 
 " And what are you going to say to him? "
 
 4 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 " Why," returned Mr. Higgins, " there ain't 
 no trouble about it now. Coin' to tell him that 
 if the Patriarch can't help him there ain't nobody 
 on earth can thought of mentionin' your name, 
 too." 
 
 " By all means," assented Madison cordially. 
 " I feel like a new man since I've come here. I 
 only wish more people knew about the Patriarch 
 it makes your heart ache to think of the suf- 
 fering and sickness that people endure so hope- 
 lessly when there isn't any need of it." 
 
 " Yes, so it do," said Mr. Higgins. He picked 
 up the reins. "So it do," he said heartily. 
 
 Madison watched the democrat as it started off 
 behind the ambling horse watched with a sort 
 of fascination at the inebriate, sideways stagger 
 of the wheels, a sort of wonder that the rear ones 
 didn't shut up like a jack-knife under the body of 
 the vehicle and the democrat promptly sit down on 
 its tail-board; then, smiling, he walked back into 
 the cottage. The Patriarch was still sitting in 
 the armchair beside the table. Madison halted 
 before the other. 
 
 " Well," said he confidentially to the Patriarch, 
 " that's settled and I don't mind admitting that 
 it's a load off my mind. I hate to think of what 
 we'd have done without Hiram Higgins in 
 fact, it distresses me to think of it. Let us think 
 of something else. Day after to-morrow Helena 
 '11 be along. Helena is the one and only but 
 you'll find that out for yourself. I don't mind 
 telling you though that she wears a number two
 
 OFFICIALLY ENDORSED 8$ 
 
 shoe, and you can guess the rest without any help 
 from me. Then a day or so later the Flopper and 
 Pale Face Harry '11 be along you'll enjoy them 
 
 things aren't going to be a bit slow from now 
 on. I expect the Flopper will bring some friends 
 with him, too, so's to make a nice little house-party 
 
 I wrote him about it, and " Madison 
 stopped abruptly. 
 
 The Patriarch, evidently catching a movement 
 of Madison's lips, was gesticulating violently to- 
 ward his ears, while he smiled half tolerantly, half 
 protestingly. 
 
 Madison nodded quickly and smiled deprecat- 
 ingiy in return. 
 
 " By Jove!" he said apologetically. "I al- 
 ways keep forgetting that you can't hear. I was 
 suggesting that perhaps you might like to go for 
 a walk Mr. Higgins says it's a fine day." 
 Madison picked up the slate and in huge letters 
 that sprawled from one end of the slate to the 
 other wrote the word: "WALK?" 
 
 The Patriarch rose from his chair with a pleased 
 expression, and Madison helped him solicitously 
 to the door. 
 
 They passed out into the sunshine and headed 
 for the beach the Patriarch, erect and strong, 
 guiding himself with his hand on Madison's arm. 
 
 Reaching the beach, the Patriarch paused and 
 turned his face toward the ocean, while he drew 
 in great breaths of the invigorating air and 
 Madison involuntarily stepped a little aside to 
 look at the other critically, as one might seek a
 
 86 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 vantage ground from which to view a picture in 
 all its variant lights and shades. Against the 
 crested, breaking surf, the fume-sprayed ledges of 
 rock, the Patriarch stood out a majestic, almost 
 saintly figure tall, stately, grand with the true 
 grandeur of simplicity, simple in dress, simple in 
 attitude and mien, patience, sweetness and trust 
 illumining his face, his silver-crowned head thrown 
 back. 
 
 " I can shut my eyes," said Madison softly, 
 " and see the Flopper being cured right now 
 and the Flopper couldn't help it if he wanted 
 to!"
 
 VII 
 THE PATRIARCH'S GRAND-NIECE 
 
 IT was Hiram Higgins who introduced 
 Helena Vail to Madison, two days later. 
 Madison had led the Patriarch outside 
 the door of the cottage as the sound of 
 wheels announced the expected arrival, and was 
 waiting for her as Mr. Higgins drove up in the 
 democrat. Helena, marvelously garbed, in the 
 extreme of fashion, was demurely surveying her 
 surroundings; while Mr. Higgins was very evi- 
 dently excited and not a little flustered. A huge 
 trunk and two smaller ones occupied the rear 
 of the democrat, with the dismantled back seat 
 lashed on top of them. 
 
 Madison, leaving the Patriarch, hastened for- 
 ward politely. 
 
 " Mr. Madison," said Hiram Higgins impor- 
 tantly, " this be the Patriarch's grand-niece come 
 to stay with him." 
 
 From under a picture hat, Helena's eyes smiled 
 down at Madison. 
 
 "Oh, I am so glad to meet you, Mr. Madi- 
 son," she said cordially. " Mr. Higgins has 
 been telling me about you, and how good you 
 have been to my my grand-uncle." 
 
 ?7
 
 88 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 " You are very kind to say so, Miss Vail," 
 responded Madison modestly. " May I help 
 you down? " 
 
 She gave him a daintily gloved hand, exposed 
 a daintily stockinged ankle as she placed her foot 
 a little hesitantly on the wheel, and jumped lightly 
 to the ground. 
 
 ' That," she said quickly and a little anxiously 
 for Mr. Higgins' ears, indicating the Patriarch, 
 " that is my grand-uncle there, I am sure." 
 
 " Yes," said Madison, leading her toward the 
 Patriarch. " And he has been looking forward 
 very anxiously all day to your arrival it seemed 
 as though the afternoon would never come for 
 him." 
 
 " Gee ! " said Helena under her breath. " I 
 had the rubes in the village on the run you 
 ought to have seen them stare as the chariot drove 
 along." 
 
 " I don't wonder," said Madison softly. 
 " The sun's rather strong down here, Helena, and 
 if you're not careful you'll scorch your neck with 
 those burning-glasses you've got in your ears." 
 
 " Don't I look nice? " demanded Helena, with 
 a pout. 
 
 " You bet you do ! " said Madison earnestly. 
 " You've got the swellest thing on Broadway 
 beaten from Forty-Second Street to the Battery. 
 Now, here you are " they had halted before 
 the Patriarch. 
 
 The venerable face was turned toward them, 
 as though by instinct the Patriarch knew that
 
 THE GRAND-NIECE 89 
 
 they were there and his hands were held out in 
 greeting. 
 
 Helena clasped them firmly, and submitted 
 sweetly as the Patriarch drew her into his arms. 
 
 The Patriarch released her after an instant, 
 and his hands, in lieu of eyes, reaching out to 
 search her face, came bewilderingly in contact 
 with the picture hat. 
 
 Helena, a little uncertainly, looked at Madi- 
 son. 
 
 " Is he all blind? " she whispered. 
 
 " Quite blind," said Madison sadly. 
 
 Helena's face clouded a little, and into the 
 brown eyes crept a strange, sudden, sympathetic 
 look. 
 
 "Doc," she said, "it it isn't fair. It's a 
 shame he can't fight back." 
 
 " One error to you, Miss Vail," said Madison 
 pleasantly. " Eliminate the * Doc.' Don't shed 
 tears, you're down here to be sweet to him, aren't 
 you well, get into the game." 
 
 Helena turned from Madison, and, impulsively 
 taking the Patriarch's groping hands, guided them 
 to her cheeks and held them there. 
 
 "Lucky dog! " observed Madison; then, rais- 
 ing his voice : " I am sure you would like to be 
 alone together, Miss Vail perhaps you will take 
 him into the cottage. If you will excuse me, I'll 
 help Mr. Higgins with the trunks." 
 
 Madison turned and walked over to where Mr. 
 Higgins, beside the democrat with a handful of 
 chin whiskers, was observing the scene.
 
 90 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 "Fine girl!" declared Mr. Higgms, as 
 Helena, with the Patriarch's arm in hers, disap- 
 peared inside the cottage. " 'Pears she must 
 have money, an' I'm right glad 'count of the 
 Patriarch said her father an' mother was dead 
 an' she was alone in the world them jewels 
 she wore must have cost a pile. Reckon she's 
 been used to livin' kinder different from the way 
 folks down here do hope 'tain't goin' to be so 
 hard on her she won't want to stay." 
 
 " I was thinking about that myself," said 
 Madison gravely, knotting his brows as he nodded 
 his head. ' There's no doubt it will be a big 
 change for her, but I imagine she had some sort 
 of an idea what to expect it is certainly greatly 
 to her credit that she would give up her own in- 
 terests unselfishly and come here to devote her 
 life to the care of a relative whom she had never 
 seen before. I've an idea that the girl who 
 would do that is the kind of a girl who's got grit 
 enough to see it through." 
 
 " So she be," said Mr. Higgins heartily. 
 " Ain't every one 'ud do it not by a heap! " 
 
 " I'll give you a hand with the trunks," said 
 Madison thoughtfully. 
 
 They carried the large trunk between them into 
 the cottage and, as Helena called to them, down 
 the little hallway past what Madison knew to 
 be the Patriarch's bedroom, and stopped before 
 the next door, which was open. Madison remem- 
 bered the room, when nearly two weeks ago now 
 the Patriarch had shown him through the cottage,
 
 THE GRAND-NIECE 91 
 
 as a sort of store-room full of odds and ends. 
 Mr. Higgins, too, evidently had known it only in 
 that guise, for he whistled softly and reached for 
 his whiskers. 
 
 " Well now, if that ain't right smart of the 
 Patriarch ! " he exclaimed. " Real set he must 
 have been on makin' you feel to home, Miss Vail 
 
 an' never said a word to no one, neither." 
 "Yes," said Helena, "isn't it pretty? And 
 
 did he really fix this up for me all by himself? " 
 
 she was looking at Madison, as she stood in 
 the center of the room beside the Patriarch. 
 
 " Must have," said Madison, surveying the 
 room. 
 
 It wasn't luxurious, the little chamber, nor was 
 there over much of furniture, nor was that even 
 of a high order there was a bed with a red- 
 checkered crazy-quilt; a washstand with severe, 
 heavy white crockery; a rocking chair, homemade, 
 of hickory; a rag mat, round, many-colored; and 
 white muslin curtains on the windows. It wasn't 
 luxurious, the little chamber it was fresh and 
 sweet and clean. 
 
 Upon the Patriarch's face was a sort of pleased 
 expectancy, and Helena promptly took his arm 
 and pressed it affectionately. 
 
 " Isn't it perfectly dear of him ! " she said 
 softly. " To think of him going to all this trou- 
 ble for me when he could scarcely see ! " 
 
 " Well, 'tain't no more'n you deserve," said 
 Mr. Higgins gallantly, as he slewed the trunk 
 around against the wall. " I'll lug them other
 
 9 fc THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 truwks in myself, ain't but small ones, they ain't " 
 and he hurried from the room, as though fear- 
 ful that Madison might secure a share in the hon- 
 ors. 
 
 " I guess you've made a hit with Mr. Higgins, 
 Helena," observed Madison, with a grin. 
 
 "Have I?" returned Helena absently; then 
 abruptly: " This is a real nice lay you've steered 
 me into, John Madison." 
 
 "Yes; not bad," said Madison complacently. 
 " Bring your uncle into the front room, Helena; 
 and then you can get Hiram to show you the well 
 and the old oaken bucket and where the pan- 
 tries and cupboards are, he knows more about 
 them than I do it's pretty near time for you to 
 be thinking about getting supper." 
 
 "Are you going to stay for it?" inquired 
 Helena pertly. 
 
 " For the first attempt! " ejaculated Madison, 
 with a wry face. " Good Heavens, no ! I'm 
 just convalescing from a serious illness." 
 
 In the front room Madison settled himself to 
 a study of the Patriarch's beaming, happy face, 
 while Helena under Mr. Higgins' attentive guid- 
 ance explored the cottage. 
 
 " D'ye know, old chap," he said, and leaned 
 across the table to touch the Patriarch's hand, 
 " I feel like a blooming philanthropist. An out- 
 sider might think I was playing you pretty low 
 and taking advantage of you, and even Helena's 
 got a budding hunch that way it seems but just 
 think of the mess you'd have been in if it wasn't
 
 THE GRAND-NIECE 93 
 
 for me, just think of the good you're going to do, 
 and just look at yourself and see how pleased and 
 happy you look." 
 
 The Patriarch smiled responsively to the touch 
 upon his hand. 
 
 " Of course you are," said Madison affably. 
 
 Presently there came the sound of an axe bus- 
 ily at work, and a moment later Helena came 
 laughingly into the room. 
 
 " He's filling up the wood-box," she explained, 
 and darting across to Madison put her arms 
 around his neck. " Aren't you going to tell me 
 you're glad to see me?" she whispered coyly. 
 " Oh, I've been longing so for you ! Kiss me " 
 she held out tempting little red lips, invitingly 
 pursed up. 
 
 "Nix on that!" said Madison, smiling but 
 firm, as he disengaged her arms. " Soft pedal, 
 Helena, my dear." 
 
 " But he can't see or hear," pouted Helena. 
 
 "I should hope not!" said Madison, with a 
 gasp. " But you never know who else might, or 
 when they might we begin right, and run no 
 risks see? People have a charming habit of 
 dropping around informally here everybody's 
 at home." 
 
 "Don't you love me any more?" inquired 
 Helena, unconvinced, and still pouting. 
 
 " Of course, I do ! " asserted Madison, laugh- 
 ing at her. " Don't be a goose, Helena. You 
 remember what I told you all in the Roost, don't 
 you? Well, I haven't been living in a Maine
 
 94 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 village ten days or two weeks for nothing, and 
 what I said then goes now more than ever. Now, 
 don't get sore, kid there's a big stake up, and 
 if we're going to play the game we've got to play 
 it to the limit. We live perfectly, ultra-proper, 
 decent lives, mentally, morally, physically, till we 
 beat it out of here for keeps." 
 
 " Ain't we going to have a nice time ! " mur- 
 mured Helena sarcastically. 
 
 " Oh, cheer up ! " said Madison. " It may be 
 quiet for a day or two but not much longer 
 than that. Now tell me about the Flopper and 
 Pale Face before Higgins gets back have they 
 got things straight? And pat your uncle's hand 
 while you talk, Helena get the habit." 
 
 " I don't have to get the habit," said Helena a 
 little crossly, perching herself on the arm of the 
 Patriarch's chair and taking his hand. " I think 
 he's a perfect dear, and for us to sit here and 
 take advantage of him when he trusts us is " 
 
 " Now cut that out," said Madison cheerfully. 
 " Think of those gondolas in Venice when we get 
 through with this that'll make you feel better. 
 Go on about the Flopper and Pale Face can 
 the Flopper speak any English yet?" 
 
 Helena laughed in spite of herself. 
 
 " I've had a dream of a time with him," she 
 said. " He's broken his neck trying, at any rate; 
 and he's not so bad as he was quite." 
 
 " Good ! " said Madison. " And ? " 
 
 " I read them your last letter saying they were 
 to some together and work the train on the way
 
 THE GRAND-NIECE 95 
 
 down," she continued. ; ' The Flopper got the 
 postmaster's letter, too." 
 
 "How did it size up as a testimonial?" in- 
 quired Madison. 
 
 Helena's dark eyes flashed with amusement. 
 
 "Lovely!" 
 
 "Too thick fishy?" asked Madison. 
 
 " Oh, no," said Helena, " not if you have faith 
 just strong. It's all right, though; I told him 
 he could use it it's a drawing card in itself, for 
 some of them would be curious enough to get off 
 and see the finish. Everything is all fixed 
 they'll be here to-morrow." 
 
 "Good girl!" said Madison approvingly. 
 " We'll pull it off out there on the lawn where all 
 the multitude can see you'll have to lead his 
 nibs out and guide him to the Flopper while the 
 hush falls and you look kind of scared you 
 know the lay. There's no one can touch you 
 when it comes to playing up to the house. And 
 now, there's just one thing more you'll need 
 some one around here to help you and keep an eye 
 on the offerings when they begin to come in. 
 Well, that's the Flopper's role in the second act 
 < see? Overwhelmed with gratitude at his 
 cure, he attaches himself to the Patriarch with 
 doglike fidelity beautiful thought ! get the 
 idea? And" 
 
 "Hush!" cautioned Helena. "Here's Mr. 
 Higgins coming." 
 
 " All right," said Madison, rising and moving 
 to the door. " I'm going now, then guess you
 
 96 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 understand. See you in the morning for the final 
 touches. Tell Mr. Higgins I'm waiting outside 
 for him to drive me home." He raised his voice. 
 " Good afternoon, Miss Vail," he said, and 
 stepped out onto the lawn.
 
 VIII 
 
 IN WHICH THE BAIT IS NIBBLED 
 
 f" ""^HERE was a group around the Flopper 
 on the Portland platform beside the 
 Bar Harbor express; some wore pity- 
 
 JL ing expressions, others smiled a little 
 tolerantly * Pale Face Harry, from the circle, 
 sneered openly. 
 
 " Nutty ! " he coughed, and touched his fore- 
 head. " Nothing doing in the upper story 
 some one ought to look after him." 
 
 The Flopper, a crippled thing on the ground, 
 fixed Pale Face Harry with a pointed forefinger. 
 
 ' Youse don't look like you had many weeps 
 to spare for anybody but yerself yer fallin' to 
 pieces," said the Flopper. " I didn't ask you nor 
 any of youse to butt in I was talkin' to dis lady 
 here " he motioned toward a young woman in 
 a wheeled, invalid chair, who, between a trained 
 nurse on one side and a gentleman on the other, 
 was regarding him with a startled expression in 
 her eyes. 
 
 She turned now and spoke to the gentleman be- 
 side her. 
 
 " Robert," she said, in a low, anxious tone, " do 
 you think that that there can be anything in 
 it?"
 
 98 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 " Have you lost your head, Naida? " the man 
 laughed. '' The age of miracles has passed." 
 
 " But he is so sure" she whispered. 
 
 " Poppycock! " said her companion contemptu- 
 ously. 
 
 The Flopper, in good, if unfashionable and 
 ready-made clothes, fresh linen, and a clean shave, 
 turned a bright, intelligent face on the man at this- 
 remark. 
 
 " I guess youse are de kind," he said, with a 
 grim smile, " dat ain't had to kill yerself worryin' 
 much about any kind of trouble, an' it ain't nothin' 
 to you to cut de ground of hope out from another 
 guy's feet an' let him slide. Mabbe you think 
 I'm nutty too, because I know I'm goin' to be 
 cured but it don't hurt you none to have me 
 think so, does it? Mabbe someday you might 
 like to hope a little yerself, an' if " 
 
 "'Board! All aboard!" the conductor's 
 voice boomed down the platform. 
 
 The young woman leaned forward in her chair 
 toward the Flopper. 
 
 " I know what it is to hope," she said softly. 
 "Will you come back into our car after awhile? 
 I'd like to have you tell me more about this. 
 \ Please do." 
 
 j " Sure," said the Flopper amiably. " Sure, 
 'mum, I will, if youse wants me to." 
 
 The crowd broke up, hurrying for the train; 
 and the Flopper, dragging a valise along beside 
 him, jerked himself toward the steps. 
 
 " Swipe me, if I ain't got a bite already! " said
 
 THE BAIT IS NIBBLED 99 
 
 the Flopper to himself. " An' outer a private 
 car, too wouldn't dat bump you ! An' say, 
 wait till you see de Doc t'row up his dukes when 
 he listens to me handin' out me sterilized Eng- 
 lish!" 
 
 The brakeman and a kindly-hearted fellow pas- 
 senger helped the Flopper into the train and 
 thereafter for an hour or more, in a first class 
 coach, the Flopper held undisputed sway. The 
 passengers, flocking from the other cars, filled the 
 aisle and seriously interfered with the lordly 
 movements of the train crew, challenging the con- 
 ductor's authority with passive indifference until 
 that functionary, exasperated beyond endurance, 
 threatened to curtail the ride the Flopper had paid 
 for and put him off at the next station whereat 
 the passive attitude of the passengers vanished. 
 The American public is always interested in a 
 novelty, and on occasions is not to be gainsaid 
 the American public, as represented by the pa- 
 trons of the Bar Harbor express, was interested 
 at the moment in the Flopper, and they passed 
 the conductor from hand to hand it was the 
 only way he could have got through the car and 
 deposited him outside in the vestibule to tell his 
 troubles to the buffer-plate. 
 
 The Flopper was in deadly, serious earnest; 
 there was no doubt, no possible room for doubt 
 on that score one had but to look at the flush 
 upon his cheeks and note the ring of conviction in 
 his voice. Even Pale Face Harry's gibes and 
 sneers melted before the unshakable assurance.
 
 ioo THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 and he became, with reservations, noticeably im- 
 pressed. 
 
 A metropolitan newspaper man was struck with 
 the idea of a humorous series of articles to pay 
 for his vacation, entitled, " Characters I Have 
 Met In Maine " and forthwith, perched on the 
 back of the seat behind the Flopper, proceeded* 
 to sketch out the first one, with the mental de- 
 termination to get off at Needley for the local 
 color necessary to its climax. 
 
 A soap drummer nudged a fellow drummer 
 whose line was lingerie. 
 
 " Ever do Needley? " he grinned. 
 
 The lingerie exponent had a sense of humor 
 he grinned back. 
 
 " My house is everlastingly rubbing it into me 
 to open up new territory," said the soap sales- 
 man. 
 
 " Me too," responded the white-goods man. 
 
 " Needley," said he of the soap persuasion, 
 " would be virgin soil for any drummer." 
 
 " I'd like to see the finish," said the lingerie 
 man still grinning. 
 
 "Well?" inquired the soap man still grin- 
 ning. " What do you say? " 
 
 " You bet ! " said the man with eight trunks 
 full of daintiness in the baggage car ahead. " It's 
 Needley for ours you're on ! " 
 
 The Flopper was an artist and he was in his 
 glory. Where his position was indubitably weak, 
 he side-stepped with the frank admission that he 
 knew no more than they. He knew only one
 
 THE BAIT IS NIBBLED 101 
 
 thing, and that was the only thing he cared about, 
 the rest made no odds to him, he was going down 
 to Needley to be cured and he let them see 
 Mr. Biggins' letter. 
 
 A porter from the rear car squirmed and wrig- 
 gled his way down to the seat occupied by the 
 Flopper. 
 
 " Mistah Tho'nton, sah," he announced impor- 
 tantly, " would like to see you in his private car, 
 if you could done make it convenient, sah." 
 
 " Sure! " said the Flopper. 
 
 The passengers crowded up, standing on the 
 seats and arm-rests, to make room for the Flop- 
 per to crawl down the aisle, while the porter 
 preceded him to open the doors. 
 
 Through the car in the rear of the one he had 
 occupied, the regular parlor car, the Flopper, a 
 piteous spectacle, made his way chairs turned, 
 the occupants craned their necks after the de- 
 formed and broken creature, while smothered ex- 
 clamations and little cries of sympathy from the 
 women followed him along. The Flopper's eyes 
 never lifted from the strip of carpet before him, 
 but his lips moved. 
 
 " Gee ! " he muttered. " Dis has de gape- 
 wagon skun a mile. Wish I could pass de hat 
 I'd make de killin' of me young life. Pipe de 
 hydrogen hair on de gran'mother wid de sparkler 
 on her thumb an' weeps in her eyes, an' look at 
 de guy wid de yellow gloves rolled back on his 
 wrists to heighten de intelligint look on his face, 
 dat she's kiddin' I could play dem to a fare-
 
 102 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 thee-well if I only had de chanst. Oh, gee! " . 
 the Flopper sighed " an' I got to let it go ! " 
 
 With regret still poignantly affecting him, the 
 Flopper passed on into the private car, and the 
 porter ushered him into a sort of combination ob- 
 servation and sitting-room compartment. The 
 Flopper's eyes lifted and made a quick, compre- 
 hensive tour of his surroundings. The young 
 woman who had spoken to him on the platform 
 was reclining on a couch ; the nurse sat on the foot 
 of the couch; and the man was tilted back in an 
 armchair against the window. 
 
 The young woman raised herself to a sitting 
 posture and held out her hand. 
 
 " I am Mrs. Thornton," she said, with a smile. 
 " This is my husband, and this is Miss Harvey, 
 my nurse. It was very good of you to come, 
 Mr. ? " she paused invitingly. 
 
 " Coogan," supplied the Flopper. " Michael 
 Coogan." 
 
 " Let me offer you a chair, Mr. Coogan," said 
 Thornton, a little ironically, pushing one toward 
 the Flopper. " Or would you be more comforta- 
 ble on the floor?" 
 
 The Flopper's eyelids fell covering a quick, 
 ugly glint. 
 
 "T'anks!" he said and swung himself, by 
 his arms, into the chair. 
 
 " I want you to tell me all about this strange 
 man in Needley, and how you came to hear of 
 him and believe in him," said Mrs. Thornton. 
 " I was only able to get just the barest outline of
 
 THE BAIT IS NIBBLED 103 
 
 it out there on the platform with the crowd 
 around." 
 
 " Dat's easy," said the Flopper earnestly. 
 " Sure, I'll tell you. I saw a piece about dis 
 Patriarch in one of de Noo Yoik papers, so I 
 writes to de postmaster of de town to find out if he 
 was on de level see ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Mrs. Thornton. " And what did 
 the postmaster say? " 
 
 The Flopper took Hiram Higgins' letter from 
 his pocket and handed it to Mrs. Thornton. 
 
 " Youse can read it fer yerself, mum," he said, 
 with an air of one delivering a final and irrefuta- 
 ble argument. 
 
 Mrs. Thornton read the letter carefully, al- 
 most anxiously. 
 
 " If only a part of this is true," she said wist- 
 fully, passing it to her husband, " it is perfectly 
 wonderful." 
 
 Mr. Thornton read it with a grin. 
 
 " I don't know, I am sure," he observed 
 caustically, handing the letter to Miss Harvey, 
 " how the medical profession would stand on this 
 
 would your school endorse it, nurse? " 
 
 Miss Harvey read it with her back to the others 
 
 then she glanced at Mrs. Thornton and 
 checked herself as she was about to speak. She 
 folded the letter slowly and returned it to the 
 Flopper without comment. 
 
 Robert Thornton, master of millions, hard- 
 headed and practical for all his youth, leaned 
 forward in his chair toward the Flopper.
 
 io 4 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 " Look here," he said bluntly, " you don't mean 
 to say that you believe this seriously, do you? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! " said the Flopper softly. " Nothin' 
 like dat ! Of course I don't believe it ! I'm only 
 guyin' myself see? I'm just goin' dere fer 
 fun an' spendin' me last red to get dere. 
 Say " his voice snapped " wot do youse t'ink 
 I am, anyway? " 
 
 " Surely, Robert," said Mrs. Thornton gently, 
 " it is evident enough that he believes it." 
 
 Thornton did not look at her he was still 
 gazing at the Flopper, his brows knitted. 
 
 " How long have you been like this? " he de- 
 manded sharply. 
 
 " All me life," said the Flopper. " I was born 
 dat way." 
 
 " And you expect to go down here and by some 
 means, which I must confess is quite beyond my 
 ability to grasp, be cured in a miraculous man- 
 ner! " Thornton smiled tolerantly. 
 
 " Sure, I do ! " asserted the Flopper doggedly. 
 " If he's done it fer de crowd dere, why can't he 
 do it fer me? Didn't de postmaster say all yer 
 gotter have is faith? Well, I got de faith an' 
 I got it hard enough to stake all I got on it. Dis 
 time to-morrow say, dis time to-morrow I 
 wouldn't change places wid any man in de United 
 States." 
 
 Thornton's tolerant smile deepened. 
 
 " I guess you're sincere enough," he said; " and 
 I'm not trying to cut the ground of hope out from 
 under your feet, as you put it out on the platform
 
 THE BAIT IS NIBBLED 105 
 
 but it seems to me that it is only the kindly 
 thing to do to warn you that the more faith you 
 put in a thing like this the worse you are making 
 it for yourself you are laying up a bitter disap- 
 pointment in store that can only make your pres- 
 ent misfortune the more unbearable." 
 
 The Flopper shook his head. 
 
 " If he's done it fer others, he can do it fer 
 me," he repeated, with unshaken conviction. 
 "An' dat goes I can't lose." 
 
 Thornton tilted his chair back again, and stared 
 at the Flopper with pitying incredulity. 
 
 There was silence for a moment; then Mrs. 
 Thornton spoke. 
 
 " Robert," she said slowly, " I want to stop at 
 Needley." 
 
 The front legs of Thornton's chair came down 
 on the heavy carpet with a dull thud, and he 
 whirled around in his seat to stare at his wife. 
 
 " You don't mean to say, Naida," he gasped, 
 " that you've got faith in this thing, too ! " 
 
 "No; not faith," she answered pathetically. 
 " I hardly dare to hope. I have hoped so much 
 in the last year, and " 
 
 " But this is sheer nonsense I " Thornton 
 broke in with irritable impatience. " I can under- 
 stand this man here, in a way he has the super- 
 stition, if you like to call it that, due to lack of 
 education, if he'll pardon my saying so in his pres- 
 ence; but you, Naida, surely you can't take any 
 stock in it ! " 
 
 She smiled at him a little wanly.
 
 .io6 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 " I have told you that I didn't even dare to 
 hope," she said. " But I want to see I want 
 to see. I have tried sanatoriums and consulted 
 specialists until it has all become a nightmare to 
 me and I am no better I sometimes think I 
 never shall be any better." 
 
 " But," exploded Thornton, rising from his 
 chair, " that's nothing to do with this this is 
 rank foolishness! Nurse, you " 
 
 Miss Harvey, too, had risen, and was regarding 
 Mrs. Thornton anxiously. 
 
 " It is better to humor her than to excite her," 
 she said in a low voice. 
 
 Mrs. Thornton had dropped back on the couch 
 and her face was turned away from the others, 
 but she stretched out her hand to her husband. 
 
 " I am not asking very much, Robert, dear 
 am I?" she said. "Not very much. Won't 
 you do this for me? " 
 
 Thornton bit his lips and scowled at the Flop- 
 per. 
 
 "Well, I'll be damned!" he muttered and 
 moving to the side of the car pushed a bell-button 
 viciously. " Sam," he snapped, as his colored 
 man appeared, " go and tell the conductor that I 
 want my car put off on the siding at Needley." 
 ' Yes, sah," said Sam. 
 
 Thornton sat down again heavily. 
 
 " Mabbe," announced the Flopper tactfully, 
 " mabbe I'd better be gettin' back to me valise 
 we're most dere, ain't we? " 
 
 Mrs. Thornton turned toward him.
 
 THE BAIT IS NIBBLED 107 
 
 " No ; please don't go, Mr. Coogan it's toe- 
 hard for you to get through the train. Sam will 
 get your things as soon as he comes back. Do 
 stay right where you are until we get to Needley." 
 
 " No; don't think of going, Mr. Coogan," said 
 Thornton savagely. 
 
 The Flopper looked at Mrs. Thornton grate- 
 fully, and at Mr. Thornton thoughtfully. 
 
 ; ' T'anks ! " said the Flopper pleasantly and 
 wriggled himself into a more comfortable posi- 
 tion in his chair. 
 
 Half an hour later, the train, that stopped only 
 on signal to discharge eastbound passengers from 
 Portland, drew up at Needley and Hiram Hig- 
 gins, on the platform, stared at a scene never be- 
 fore witnessed in the history of the town. 
 
 It was not one passenger, or two, or three, that 
 alighted they streamed in a bewildering fashion 
 from every vestibule of every car. It is true that 
 the majority got back into the train later, but that 
 did not lessen the effect any on Mr. Higgins. 
 Mr. Higgins' jaw dropped, and he grabbed at his 
 chin whiskers for support. 
 
 " Merciful daylights ! " he breathed heavily. 
 
 " Now what in the land's sakes be it all about? " 
 
 ( His eyes, following the hurrying passengers, fixed 
 
 on the twisted shape of the Flopper, being helped 
 
 to the platform from the private car. 
 
 'Three cheers for Coogan! " yelled some ex- 
 citable passenger. 
 
 The cheers were given with a will. 
 
 " Good luck to you, Coogan ! " shouted another
 
 IDS THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 and the crowd took it up in chorus: " Good 
 luck to you, Coogan ! " 
 
 " Coogan! " Mr. Higgins' face paled, and 
 he took a firmer grip on his whiskers. " Now if 
 you ain't gone an' put your fool foot in it, Hiram 
 Higgins," he said miserably. " If that there's 
 the fellow that you writ to, you've just laid out 
 to make a plumb fool of the Patriarch, 'cause I 
 reckon the Almighty knew His own mind when 
 He made a critter like that, an' didn't calc'late to 
 have His work upsot much this side of the grave 
 
 not even by the Patriarch."
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE 
 
 FAITH is an inheritance common to the 
 human race; and the human race in 
 its daily life, in its daily dealings, 
 man to man, could not go on without 
 it but faith is a matter of degree. Faith, in 
 the abstract, the element of it, is inborn in every 
 soul; and while dormant, until put to a crucial 
 test along any given line, is boundless and un- 
 limited a sort of tacitly accepted, existing 
 state, unquestioned. Faith in many is a sturdy, 
 virile thing to a certain point. It is the fire 
 that proves. 
 
 Needley had faith in the Patriarch a faith 
 that never before had been questioned. But 
 Needley had more than that Needley held the 
 Patriarch in affection, as a cherished thing, almost 
 sacredly, almost as an idol. Faith the simple 
 people of Needley had always had to a certain 
 point but it faltered before this grotesque, in- 
 human, twisted shape that squatted in the road 
 before the Congress Hotel like a hideous carica- 
 ture of an abnormal toad. Their faith failed to 
 bridge the span that gave the Patriarch power 
 over such as this, and they saw their idol shattered 
 
 109
 
 no THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 in their own eyes, and held up to mockery before 
 the eyes of these strangers who had so suddenly 
 and tempestuously swarmed upon them. 
 
 Hiram Higgins, seeking out Doc Madison in- 
 side the hotel, was in a state bordering on distrac- 
 tion. 
 
 " I druve him over from the station 'cause he 
 couldn't walk, him an' a man, an' two women, an' 
 a wheel-chair," Mr. Higgins explained. " But 
 what's to be done now? He wants me to drive 
 him out to the Patriarch's. I got faith in the 
 Patriarch, but I never said he could work miracles 
 there ain't no one on earth could straighten 
 that critter out. Don't stand to reason that the 
 Patriarch's to be made a fool of." 
 
 " Certainly not," agreed Madison emphatically. 
 " It's most unfortunate. I suppose all of us here 
 in Needley " he looked around at the assembled 
 group of leading citizens " feel the same way, 
 too?" 
 
 " Of course we do," said Mr. Higgins help- 
 lessly. " Couldn't feel no ways else." 
 
 Madison laid his hand suddenly, impressively, 
 upon Mr. Higgins' shoulder and looked mean- 
 ingly into Mr. Higgins' eyes and into the eyes 
 of the selectmen, the overseers of the poor, the 
 general-store proprietor, and the school com- 
 mittee. 
 
 " Don't drive him over, then," he said signif- 
 icantly. " Don't any of the rest of you do it 
 either and tell everybody else not to. Make 
 him crawl. If he's determined to go, let him get
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE in 
 
 there by himself if he can, make him crawl he'll 
 never be able to do it." 
 
 " That's so," said Mr. Higgins, brightening, 
 while the others nodded; then, dubiously: " But 
 s'pose he does get there how be we goin' to 
 stop him? " 
 
 " If he can get there by himself you can't stop 
 him," said Madison seriously. " You can't do 
 anything like that. To use force would be car- 
 rying things too far, and would only place the 
 Patriarch in a worse light. If this fellow 
 what's his name? Coogan? can crawl there, 
 let him that's his own business. None of us 
 are encouraging him, the Patriarch didn't ask him 
 to come, and no one has a right to expect miracles 
 so it can't hurt the Patriarch seriously under 
 those conditions. Besides, if this Coogan has got 
 faith enough to crawl that mile, who knows what 
 might happen make him crawl." 
 
 Mr. Higgins, with a grim nod, headed a de- 
 termined exodus from the hotel office and! 
 Madison strolled out onto the veranda. 
 
 Needley was in a furor. The news spread like 
 an oil-fed conflagration. The farmers left their 
 work in the fields and hurried into the village; 
 from the houses and cottages came the women 
 and children to cluster around the Congress Hotel; 
 from the station, scarcely of less interest to the 
 inhabitants than the Flopper himself, straggled in 
 those curious enough to have left the train, nearly 
 a dozen of them and amongst them Pale Face 
 Harry coughed, as he trudged laboriously along.
 
 H2 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 Larger and larger grew the circle around the 
 Flopper, filling and blocking the road, overflow- 
 ing into front yards, and massing on the little 
 lawn of the hotel clear up to the veranda until 
 fields and houses were deserted, and to the last 
 inhabitant Needley was there. 
 
 Upon the ground squatted the Flopper, his eyes 
 sweeping the ring of faces that was like a wall 
 around him the grinning faces of his fellow 
 passengers from the train; the stony, concerned 
 and rather sullen faces of the men of Needley; the 
 anxious, excited faces of the women; the bewil- 
 dered, curious and somewhat frightened faces of 
 the children, who pushed and shoved their elders 
 for better vantage ground. 
 
 The Flopper licked his lips, and renewed the 
 appeal he had been making for nearly five min- 
 utes. 
 
 " Ain't no one goin* to 'drive me out to de 
 Patriarch's?" 
 
 " Horses are all busy in the fields," said a voice, 
 uncompromisingly. 
 
 " Yes," said the Flopper, with bitter irony, 
 " drivin' each other around, while youse are here 
 starin' at me an' won't help." 
 
 His eyes caught Doc Madison's from the ve- 
 randa and held an instant to read a message and 
 interpret the almost imperceptible, but significant, 
 movement of Madison's head. 
 
 " Gee ! " said the Flopper to himself, as his 
 eyes swept the faces around him again. " Dis is 
 a nice game de Doc's planted on me he wants
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE 113 
 
 me to do de wiggle out dere fer de rubes ! Ain't 
 dey a peachy lot look at de saucer eyes on de 
 kids!" 
 
 Mrs. .Thornton, in her wheel-chair on the 
 inner edge of the circle, turned to her husband. 
 
 " It's very strange that no one seems willing 
 to drive him," she said. 
 
 " Oh, not very," responded Thornton, with a 
 short laugh. " I don't blame them they don't 
 want this healer of theirs made a monkey of." 
 
 "If no one will drive him, he shall have my 
 wheel-chair," announced Mrs. Thornton impul- 
 sively. " I think it is a perfect shame the poor 
 man!" 
 
 " Nonsense ! " said Thornton gruffly. " You'll 
 do nothing of the kind." 
 
 " Yes, Robert, I will," declared Mrs. Thorn- 
 ton with determination. She leaned forward and 
 called to the Flopper. " Mr. Coogan," she said 
 anxiously, " if you can't find any other way of 
 getting out there, I want you to take this chair of 
 mine you'll be able to manage with it, I am 
 sure." 
 
 The Flopper looked at her with gratitude 
 but shook his head mindful of Doc Madison. 
 
 " T'anks, mum," he said, " but I couldn't t'ink 
 of it you needs it more'n me." 
 
 " Please do," she insisted. 
 
 " T'anks, mum," said the Flopper again, " but 
 I couldn't You needs it, an' I can get along 
 widout it. Dey're stallin' on me, but I can get 
 dere by myself if any one'll show me de way."
 
 ii 4 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 " I'll show you, mister," piped a shrill voice 
 and young Holmes on his crutch hopped into the 
 circle. " I'll show you, mister an' 'tain't fur, 
 neither." 
 
 " Swipe me! " muttered the Flopper, as he sur- 
 veyed the lad. " Dis is de limit fer fair! " Per- 
 turbed and uncertain what to do, he tried to catch 
 Doc Madison's eye again, but a movement in the 
 crowd had hidden Madison. 
 
 Some one in the crowd, the lingerie drummer, 
 getting the grim humor of the situation, laughed 
 and the laugh came like a challenge, taunting 
 the quick-tempered, turbulent soul of the Flop- 
 per. 
 
 " Come on, mister! " urged the boy excitedly. 
 " 'Tain't fur I'll show you." 
 
 " God bless you, son," said the Flopper, while 
 he flung an inward curse at the man who had 
 laughed. " Son, God bless you fer yer good 
 heart go ahead I'll stick to you." 
 
 The crowd opened, making a lane through 
 which the boy stumped on his crutch, his face 
 flushed and eager, and through which the Flopper 
 followed, slowly, rocking from side to side as he 
 helped himself along with the palm of his left 
 hand flat in the dust of the road, trailing his wob- 
 bling leg behind him. 
 
 The crowd closed in behind and moved for- 
 ward. 
 
 Mrs. Thornton's face was fever-flushed, her 
 eyes bright; in her weak state she was on the 
 verge of nervous hysteria.
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE 115] 
 
 " I want to go, Robert," she cried. " I must 
 go." 
 
 " But, my dear," protested Thornton harshly, 
 " this is simply the height of absurdity. For 
 Heaven's sake be sensible, Naida. Just imagine 
 what people would say if they saw us here with 
 this outfit of idiots they'd think we'd gone 
 mad." 
 
 " I don't care what they'd think," she returned 
 feverishly, her frail fingers plucking nervously at 
 the arms of her chair. " I must go I must 
 I must." 
 
 Thornton glanced at the nurse, then stared at 
 his wife Miss Harvey's meaning look was 
 hardly necessary to drive home to him the fact 
 that Mrs. Thornton was in no condition to be de- 
 nied anything. 
 
 Red-faced, Thornton strode to the back of the 
 chair and began to push it along. 
 
 " Of all the damned foolishness that ever I 
 heard of," he gritted savagely, " this is the 
 worst! " His face went redder still with mortifi- 
 cation. " If this ever leaks out I'll never hear 
 the last of it. Look at us bringing up the rear 
 of a gibbering mob of yokels ! We're fit for a 
 padded cell!" 
 
 In the crowd, Madison rubbed shoulders for a 
 moment with Pale Face Harry. 
 
 " Who's the party with the wheel-chair be- 
 hind? " he asked. 
 
 " Millionaire Chicago private car 
 Flopper's got the wife going hard rode down
 
 n6 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 with them," coughed Pale Face Harry behind his 
 hand. 
 
 " I guess I'll get acquainted," said Madison. 
 " Circulate, Harry, and cough your head off < 
 don't hide your light under a bushel circulate." 
 And Madison fell back to scrape acquaintance 
 with the man of millions. 
 
 Close-packed upon the road, the procession 
 spread out for a hundred yards behind the Flop- 
 per bare-footed children; women in multi-col- 
 ored gingham and calico ; men in the uncouth dress 
 of the fields, the uncouthness accentuated by the 
 sprinkling of more pretentious clothing worn by 
 those who had come from the train. And slowly, 
 very slowly, this conglomerate human cosmorama 
 moved on, undulating queerly with the variant 
 movements of its component parts, snail-like, for 
 the Flopper's pace was slow as strange a spec- 
 tacle, perhaps, as the human eye had ever wit- 
 nessed, something of grimness, something of 
 humor, something of awe, something of fear ex- 
 uding from it it seemed to contain within itself 
 the range, and to express, the gamut of all human 
 emotion. 
 
 On the procession went so slowly as to be 
 almost sinister in its movement. And a strange 
 sound rose from it and seemed to float and hover 
 over it like a weird, invisible, acoustic canopy. 
 Three hundred voices, men's, women's and chil- 
 dren's, rose and fell, rose and fell at first in a 
 medley of scoffings, laughter, sullen murmurs, 
 earnest dispute and children's prattle a strange
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE 117 
 
 composite sound indeed! But as the minutes 
 passed and the mass moved on and stopped as the 
 Flopper paused to rest, and moved on and stopped 
 and moved on again, gradually this changed, very 
 gradually, not abruptly, but as though the scoffings 
 and the laughter were dying away almost imper- 
 ceptibly in the distance. For as the Flopper 
 stopped to rest, those near him gazed upon his 
 face, distorted, full of muscular distress, sweat 
 pouring from his forehead, pain and suffering 
 written in every lineament and drew back whis- 
 pering into the crowd, giving place to others until 
 all had seen. And so the strange sound from this 
 strange congregation grew lower, until it was a 
 sort of breathless, long-sustained and wavering 
 note, a prescience, a premonition of something to 
 come, a ghastly mockery or a tragedy to befall, 
 until it was an awe-struck murmuring thing. 
 
 Some spoke to him now and in pity offered to 
 get him a horse and wagon, offered even to carry 
 him but the Flopper shook his head. 
 
 " 'Tain't goin' to be but a few minutes now," 
 he panted in an exalted voice, " before I'm cured 
 I got de faith to know dat I got de faith." 
 
 And the crippled lad upon the crutch beside 
 him urged him on. The boy's face was strained 
 and eager, full of mingled emotions pride in 
 the leading part he played, wonder and expect- 
 ancy. 
 
 " Come on, mister, come on ! " he kept saying, 
 impatiently accommodating his own restricted pace 
 to the Flopper's still slower one.
 
 :n8 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 Through the wagon track, through the woods 
 beneath the trees, the dead, slow, shuffling tread 
 went on and now even the murmuring sound 
 was hushed. Men and women stared into each 
 other's faces children sought their elders' 
 hands. What did it mean? Faith yes, they 
 had had faith but never faith like this. They 
 looked at the awful deformity over one another's 
 heads, crawling inch by inch along before them 
 watched the stubborn, bitter struggle of pain and 
 suffering of the wretched man who led them, 
 spurred on by a faith cast in a heroic mold such 
 as none there had ever dreamed of before and 
 they spoke no more. There was only the sound 
 of movement now and that curiously subdued. 
 Men seemed to choose their footing, seeking to 
 tread noiselessly, as though in some solemn pres- 
 ence that awed them and held them in an in- 
 tangible, heart-quickening suspense. 
 
 Onward they went following the lurching, 
 wriggling, reeling, broken thing before them 
 following the Flopper, his right hand and arm 
 curved piteously inward to his chin, his neck 
 thrown sideways, his sagging leg seeming to hold 
 only to his body by spasmodic jerks to catch up 
 with the body itself, like the steel when detached 
 from the magnet that bounds forward to re-attach 
 itself again, his eyes starting from his head, his 
 face bloodless with exertion and twisted as fear- 
 fully as were his limbs, but upon his lips a smile of 
 resolution, of indomitable assurance. 
 
 Onward they went a huddled mass of hu-
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE 119 
 
 manity, literate and illiterate, of all ages, of all 
 conditions, and none laughed, none grinned, none 
 smiled, none spoke all that was past. They 
 stopped, they moved again as the Flopper 
 stopped and moved. Occasionally a child cried 
 out occasionally there came a discordant, rack- 
 ing cough that was all. 
 
 Tenser grew the very atmosphere they breathed 
 
 heavier upon them fell the sense of something 
 almost supernatural, beyond the human and the 
 finite. Skeptic and faint believer, sinner, Chris- 
 tian and scoffer, they were all alike now in the 
 presence of a faith whose evidence was before 
 them in harrowing vividness, in the torment and 
 agony of a fellow creature who sought again 
 through faith a restoration to the image of his 
 kind. There was no creed, no school of ethical 
 belief, no conflicting orthodoxy to quibble over, 
 no ground on which atheist and theologian even 
 might stand apart there was only faith a 
 faith whose trappings none might take issue with, 
 for it was naked faith and the trappings were 
 stripped from it it was faith in its very essence, 
 boundless, utter, simple, limitless, staggering, ap- 
 palling them. 
 
 Its consummation? That was another thing 
 
 a thing that in the presence of such faith as 
 this brought human pity, sympathy and sorrow to 
 its full, brought dread and terror. Faith such as 
 this they had never conceived; faith such as this, 
 if it was to prove a shattered thing, was for its 
 exponent to drink the very dregs of misery and
 
 I2O 
 
 despair and yet, rising above that possibility, 
 flinging grim challenge at their doubts, stood this 
 very faith, mighty in itself, perfect in its confi- 
 dence, heroic in its agony, that all might gaze 
 upon from a common standpoint and know as 
 faith. 
 
 No whispering breeze stirred the young leaves 
 in the trees; in the stillness of the afternoon came 
 only the heavy, pulsing throb of Nature's breath- 
 ing. One hundred, two, three hundred, they 
 moved along, slow, sinuous, troubled, their eyes 
 straight before them or upon the ground at their 
 feet only the children looked with frightened, 
 startled eyes into their parents' faces, and clung 
 the closer. 
 
 Out upon the wagon track they debouched and 
 spread in a long, thin line beneath the maples on 
 either side of the Flopper = and waited.
 
 X 
 
 THE MIRACLE 
 
 THERE was utter silence now the 
 tread of shuffling feet was gone no 
 man moved it seemed as though no 
 man breathed they stood as carven 
 things, inanimate, men, women and children 
 strained forward, their faces drawn, tense and 
 rigid. In the very air, around them, everywhere, 
 imprisoning them, clutching like an icy hand at 
 the heart, something unseen, a dread, intangible 
 presence weighed them down and lay heavy upon 
 them. What was to come? What drear tragedy 
 was to be enacted? What awful mockery was to 
 fall upon this maimed and mutilated creature 
 within whose deformed and pitiful body there too 
 was a human soul ? 
 
 From the cottage door across the lawn came 
 two figures a girl in simple, clinging white, her 
 head bowed, the sun itself seeming to caress the 
 dark brown wealth of hair upon her head, chang- 
 ing it to glinting strands of burnished copper; and 
 beside her walked the Patriarch, his hand resting 
 lightly upon her arm, a wondrous figure of a man, 
 majestic, simple, grand, his silvered-hair bared to 
 the sun, his face illumined. 
 
 121
 
 122 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 " There he is, mister!" whispered young 
 Holmes hoarsely. " There he is ! Go on, mis- 
 ter, go on see what he can do for you ! " 
 
 There came a sound that was like a great, 
 gasping intake of breath, as men and women 
 watched. Out toward the Patriarch, alone now, 
 the Flopper began to wriggle and writhe his way 
 along. God in Heaven have pity ! What was 
 this sight they looked upon this poor, distorted, 
 mangled thing that grovelled in the earth that 
 figure towering there in the sunlight with vener- 
 able white beard and hair, erect, symbolic of some 
 strange, mystic power that awed them, his head 
 turned slightly in a curious listening attitude, the 
 sightless eyes closed, upon the face a great calm 
 like a solemn benediction. 
 
 Fell a stillness that was as the stillness of death; 
 came a hush until in men's ears was the quick, fierce 
 pound and throb of their own hearts. On, on 
 toward the Patriarch slithered and twisted that 
 frightful deformity that they had followed over 
 that long, torturing mile on, on he went, and 
 they watched scarce drawing breath, their faces 
 white, their very limbs held as in a palsied, fear- 
 some spell and then, sudden, abrupt, terrifying, 
 there rose a shriek, wild, hysterical, prolonged, in 
 a woman's voice, the cadence wavering from gut- 
 tural to shrill and ending in a high-pitched, broken 
 scream. 
 
 The Flopper halted and turned himself about, 
 while his left hand swept his livid face, brushing 
 from it the spurting drops, sweeping back the
 
 THE MIRACLE 123 
 
 damp, tangled hair from his eyes faced them 
 till they saw an agony on human countenance 
 that struck, stabbing, to their souls faced 
 them while his eyes traversed the long, long line 
 of ghastly white faces before him, out of which 
 eyes everywhere, row on row of them, straining, 
 fixed, fascinated, seemed to burn like living fires 
 as they held him in their focus. 
 
 He had not gone far, perhaps ten yards no 
 more. By the group around the wheel-chair, al- 
 most in the center of the line, stood Madison, his 
 chin in his hand in a meditative, thoughtful atti- 
 tude, the single soul who watched the scene from 
 under lowered lids; Thornton had involuntarily 
 edged a little forward from behind the chair until 
 he stood now at its side in a strange, abashed way 
 as though his own personality were over-ruled, 
 obliterated, his face with a white sternness upon it, 
 his eyes, like all other eyes, agleam with an un- 
 natural fire; Mrs. Thornton had pulled herself 
 forward in the chair, one hand clutching at her 
 breast, the frail fingers of the other woven in a 
 grasp so tight around the arm of the chair that 
 the flesh was bloodless; a little way off, a group of 
 three, the two salesmen and the metropolitan news- 
 paper man, seemed as though stricken into stone, 
 stripped of all assurance, all complacence, awed, 
 tense, palpitant, as the patched, bare-legged tat- 
 terdemalion of ten from the fields, that stood be- 
 side them, was awed and tense and palpitant. 
 
 And away on either side stretched the line of 
 white, rigid faces, the never-ending, burning eyes
 
 124 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 but the silence with that shriek was gone now, 
 for another woman and another, overwrought, 
 needing but that sudden shock to unnerve them 
 utterly, shrieked in turn and through the line 
 seemed to run a shudder, and it moved a little 
 though no foot stirred, moved with a strange, sinu- 
 ous, rocking, swaying movement, from the hips, 
 backward and forward and to either side. Men 
 raised their eyes, stole frightened, questioning 
 glances at their neighbors and fixed their eyes 
 on the Flopper again on the Flopper and that 
 majestic figure in the center of the lawn, so calm 
 of mien, of attitude and pose. 
 
 Once again the Flopper's eyes swept the scene. 
 A few feet in advance of the crowd, as though 
 drawn irresistibly forward, young Holmes hung 
 upon his crutch. The boy's soul seemed in his 
 face hope, a world of it, as he gazed at the Pa- 
 triarch, sickening fear as he looked at the Flopper; 
 his lips moving without sound, his body trembling 
 with emotional excitement. Still once again the 
 Flopper's eyes swept the line of men and women 
 and children, fast reaching toward a common un- 
 governable hysteria and then he turned with an 
 unbalanced, impotent, broken movement, flung out 
 his good arm toward the Patriarch in piteous sup- 
 plication, and, jerking himself forward, went on. 
 
 Slowly, very slowly at first, he resumed his way, 
 crawling it seemed by no more than a painful inch 
 on inch, in mortal pain, in mortal agony and strug- 
 gle then gradually his movements began to 
 quicken, ^s though growing upon him were a mad,
 
 THE MIRACLE 1*5. 
 
 elated haste that he could not control quicker 
 and quicker he went, pitching and lurching wildly 
 from a pace that was beyond him. 
 
 A strange, low, moaning sound rose from be- 
 hind him, fluttering, inarticulate, that voiceless ut- 
 terance that seeks to find some vent for human 
 emotion when human emotion sweeps with mighty 
 surge to engulf the soul. It rose and died away 
 and rose again and died away and children 
 began to whimper with a fear and terror that they 
 did not understand, and seeking solace in their 
 elders' faces found added cause for fear instead. 
 
 Nearer to that saintly figure who stood so calm, 
 so quiet, the massive white-locked head still turned 
 a little in that curious listening attitude, beside 
 whom, close drawn now, was that white-clad girl- 
 ish form, whose eyes were lowered, whose sweet 
 face seemed to hold a heaven of pity and infinite 
 compassion, upon whose lips there was a smile of 
 divine tenderness, drew that piteous mockery of 
 the image of a man, whose every movement ap- 
 peared one of agony beyond human power to en- 
 dure and the agony found echo in the watchers* 
 souls, and a low, muffled groan as of men in pain 
 and hurt, ran tremulously along the line. 
 
 Still nearer to the Patriarch drew the Flopper. 
 More heart-rending was his every movement, for 
 with his quickened pace he sought to move without 
 the aid of the only member that was as other 
 men's, his left hand and arm that, in pleading, 
 yearning supplication, was stretched out before 
 him to the Patriarch.
 
 126 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 The extreme ends of the long line of watchers 
 curled a little inward, almost imperceptibly, a half 
 step taken without volition. The crippled boy, 
 swaying upon his crutch, his lips parted, trembling 
 in every limb, edged forward hesitantly, fearfully, 
 now a foot, now another, now the bare space of a 
 single inch. And now down the entire length of 
 the line from end to end that wavering, rocking 
 movement in swaying, pregnant unison grew 
 stronger men knew not what they did it 
 seemed the very air they breathed must smother 
 them and, in that dull, weird, lingering note, 
 rose again the sound of moaning that seemed to 
 beat in consonance with the distant mournful 
 rhythm of the endless beat of surf on shore. 
 
 Women clutched at their breasts now; men's 
 knuckles went white beneath the tight-drawn skin; 
 the children drew behind their mothers' skirts and, 
 terror-stricken, cried aloud. Surcharged, on the 
 edge, the bare and ragged edge of frenzy now 
 was every man and woman in the crowd. 
 It was a sight, a spectacle that racked them 
 in every fibre of their beings, that stirred 
 them to pity, to hope, to fear, until the aw- 
 ful misery of this blighted and crawling thing 
 was their own in its every twitch of agony that 
 struck them with a terror, the greater because it 
 was indefinable, a prescience, a reaching out beyond 
 human realm, the invoking of a supernal power 
 the thought of which very power, once loosed, 
 chilled them with panic-dread. 
 
 Yet still they watched it was beyond their
 
 Mayflower Photopay Corporation. 
 
 SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY.' ;
 
 THE MIRACLE 127 
 
 power to turn their eyes enthralled, a moaning, 
 swaying, rocking mob, they watched. Madness 
 was creeping upon them rampant. Like a mighty 
 tide, the ocean weight behind it, hurling itself 
 against flood-gates that could never stand, it 
 mounted higher and higher; and already, as the 
 water first seeps between the gates, grim forecast 
 of what was to come, it showed itself now in that 
 long, sobbing, convulsive inhalation, in that 
 strange, sinuous, restless movement. 
 
 On went the Flopper. There was still a yard 
 to go two feet one. Stopped in a sudden 
 deathless hush was all sound. The Flopper flung 
 himself forward upon his face at the Patriarch's 
 feet. Stopped was all movement, haggard and 
 tense every face, strained every eye. For a mo- 
 ment that seemed to span eternity, in a huddled 
 heap, that crippled, twisted thing lay there before 
 them motionless, without sign of life the ven- 
 erable face above it, still intent, still listening, 
 turned slowly downwards. Then there was a 
 movement, a movement that blanched the watch- 
 ing faces to a more pallid white that dangling, 
 wobbling leg drew inward slowly, very slowly, and 
 hip and knee, as though guided by some mighty 
 power, immutable, supreme, came deliberately into 
 normal form. 
 
 A shriek, a cry, a wail, a sob, a prayer it 
 came now unrestrained hysteria was loosed in 
 a mad ungovernable orgasm men clutched at 
 each other and cowered, hiding their faces with 
 their hands women dropped to their knees and.
 
 128 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 sobbing, screaming, prayed. Loud it rose, the 
 turmoil of human souls aghast and quailing before 
 a manifestation that seemed to fling them face to 
 face, uncovered, naked, before the awful power 
 and majesty and might of Heaven itself. 
 
 They looked again fearfully. The twisted 
 thing was standing now, standing but still de- 
 formed with crooked neck, with curved, bent, 
 palsied arm. And nearer had drawn little 
 Holmes, his head thrust forward, shaking as with 
 the ague as he gazed on the group before him, ob- 
 livious to all else around him. 
 
 A twinge of frightful torture swept the Flop- 
 per's face and with that same slow, awful de- 
 liberation the misshapen arm straightened out. 
 Men cried aloud again and again a woman 
 fainted, another here, another there children 
 wailed and ran, some shrieking, some whimper- 
 ing, for the woods. 
 
 Again the spasm crossed the Flopper's face, a 
 shuddering, muscular contortion and from the 
 shoulder rose his head. 
 
 Inward drew the ends of the line of paroxysm- 
 stricken people not far, not near to that hal- 
 lowed group for something held them back; but 
 inward gradually until the line, no longer straight, 
 was half a circle, crescent shaped. Louder came 
 that harrowing medley of sounds, its component 
 parts voicing the uttermost depths of the soul of 
 each separate individual man and woman there 
 some moaned in terror; some prayed, mumbling, 
 still upon their knees; some laughed hoarsely,
 
 THE MIRACLE 129; 
 
 wildly, their senses for the moment gone; and some 
 were dumb; and some shrieked their prayers in 
 frenzy. Louder it grew the end had come 
 that deformed thing stood erect, a perfect man 
 he turned his face toward them he stretched out 
 his arms and they answered him with their 
 wails, their sobs, their moans, their cries they 
 answered him in their terror, in their shaken senses, 
 clutching at each other again answered him 
 from their knees, their voices hoarse answered 
 him with trembling lips and tongues that would not 
 move. 
 
 And then suddenly, as though riven where they 
 stood and kneeled and crouched, all movement 
 ceased and every heart stood still as ringing 
 clear above all else, shocking all else to stunned, 
 petrified silence, there came a cry a cry in a 
 young voice. It rang again and again, trembling 
 with glad, new life, vibrant, a cry that seemed to 
 thrill with chords of happiness and ecstasy im- 
 measurable. Again it came, again, exultant, puls- 
 ing with a mighty joy young Holmes had flung 
 his crutch from him, and, with outstretched arms, 
 was running toward the Patriarch across the lawn. 
 
 For an instant more that stunned, awed silence 
 held. All eyes were riveted and fixed upon the 
 scene none looked at Madison if any had 
 they would have seen that his face had gone an 
 ivory white.
 
 THE AFTERMATH 
 
 *" AM cured, Robert! Robert! Robert! 
 See, I too am cured! Oh, Robert, what 
 wondrous joy!" Mrs. Thornton had 
 
 JL. left her wheel-chair and was standing be- 
 side her husband, standing alone, unaided for the 
 first time in many months. 
 
 " Naida ! " it was a hoarse cry from Thorn- 
 ton. Then his hand passed heavily across his face 
 as though to force his brain to coherent action, to 
 lift the spell of what seemed a wild phantasm in all 
 around him. " Naida ! " ne sought now to con- 
 trol his voice " Naida, get back iru:o your chair 
 again." 
 
 She laughed a little hysterically but i the 
 Saugh too was the uplift of a soul enraptured. 
 
 " But I am cured, Robert. See, dear, can't you 
 
 understand? " She shook his arm. " See I 
 
 jam cured. I can walk just as I could before I was 
 
 -ill. Oh, Robert, Robert! See! See!" she 
 
 went from him, walking a little, running a little 
 
 and laughing in a low, rippling, glorious laugh that 
 
 was like the music of silver chimes ringing out in 
 
 glad acclaim. 
 
 He stared at her, both hands now to his tem= 
 130
 
 THE AFTERMATH 131 
 
 pies ; then he turned to look strangely at the empty 
 chair but it was not empty. Miss Harvey, the 
 nurse, on her knees, had flung herself across it and, 
 with buried head, was sobbing unrestrainedly. 
 
 And now upon the lawn was a scene indescrib- 
 able. The long line was broken. Men and 
 women ran hither and thither, for the most part 
 aimlessly, as though in some strange state of coma 
 where the mind refused its functions. They; 
 talked and cried and shouted at each other iii 
 frenzy without knowing what they said some 
 with tears raining down their faces, others with 
 blank countenances, no sign of emotion upon them 
 other than in their wild, dilated eyes. Here and 
 there they rushed without volition, their throat- 
 noises rising above them, floating through the 
 still air in a sound that no ear had ever heard be- 
 fore, weird, terrifying, without license, beyond 
 control. Like mad creatures rushing against each 
 other in the dark they were, stupified by a sight 
 that was no mortal sight, a sight that blinded them 
 mentally because it was no human sight. 
 
 Faith? Faith is a matter of degree, is it not? 
 
 Or is it at its full in power and efficacy at mo- 
 ments when hysteria in paroxysm is at its height? 
 Who shall define faith? Who shall say what it 
 is, and who shall place its limitations upon it? 
 
 Out in the center of the lawn young Holmes 
 was in his mother's arms, the father pathetically 
 trying to wrap both mother and child in his own. 
 Around them, attracted in that strange uncertain 
 way, the crowd constantly grew larger. Further
 
 I 3 2 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 out again, Helena was leading the Patriarch to- 
 ward the cottage, the Flopper close behind her 
 the Patriarch walking with a slow tread, his head 
 still turned a little in that listening attitude and 
 at a distance followed a straggling crowd. Then 
 the cottage door was shut and Helena, the 
 Patriarch and the Flopper disappeared from 
 view. 
 
 A dozen yards from the wheel-chair stood Mad- 
 ison, riveted to the spot, motionless save for a 
 nervous twitching of the lips, his eyes, now upon 
 the invalid who walked about, now on the little 
 lad who had thrown away his crutch. Some one 
 plucked at his sleeve, but Madison gave no heed 
 again his arm was pulled, and he turned to look 
 into Pale Face Harry's face. The other's counte- 
 nance was gray, the eyes full of a shrinking, ter- 
 rified light. 
 
 " Doc, for God's sake, Doc, what's it mean? " 
 whispered Pale Face Harry shakily, moistening 
 his dry lips with his tongue. " Doc, this ain't no 
 bunk there's something in it." 
 
 The words seemed to rouse Madison to lead- 
 ership. He stared at Pale Face Harry for a mo- 
 ment, then a grim smile flickered across his face. 
 
 " Something in it! " he repeated with an ironic 
 laugh and suddenly grabbed Pale Face Harry's 
 arm and shook him. " There's so much in it that 
 I'm dnmk with it, crazy with it but I'm trying 
 to make myself believe it isn't too good to be true. 
 Get that? Get a grip on that, and hang n. 
 Don't lose your nerve, Harry! "
 
 THE AFTERMATH 133 
 
 " I guess I ain't much worse than you," mum- 
 bted Pale Face Harry. " You're whiter than a 
 sheet." 
 
 " You're right," admitted Madison frankly. 
 " I'm queer, but I'm coming around. Helena 
 seems to be the only one who never lost her grip 
 she's got the Patriarch and the Flopper out of 
 the way and under cover. Brace up, Harry -^- 
 *rhat I thought we'd get in the Roost that night is 
 counterfeit money to what'll come from this." 
 His eyes fastened on a figure that, separating it- 
 self from the group around young Holmes, now 
 dasEed frantically, hatless, and with dishevelled 
 hair to Mr. and Mrs. Thornton. " Who's that, 
 Harry ? He came down on the train with you 
 know him? " 
 
 " He's only some newspaper guy or other," an- 
 swered Pale Face Harry mechanically, his eyes 
 still roving wildly over the scene around him. 
 
 " Oh, is that all! " ejaculated Madison with a 
 little gasp. " I've already exhausted my thanks 
 to Santa Claus and here he comes with another 
 package done up in dinky pink paper tied with 
 baby ribbon and the gold platter it's on goes 
 with it!" 
 
 "What d'ye mean?" asked Pale Face Harry 
 heavily. 
 
 The newspaper man, the instinct of his calling 
 now rising paramount to all else, had left the 
 Thorntons and was tearing for the wagon track 
 on his way to the station and the telegraph office 
 like one possessed.
 
 134 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 " By to-morrow morning," said Madison softly, 
 " the missionaries will be explaining this to the Es- 
 quimaux at Oo-lou-lou, the near-invalids in Cali- 
 fornia will be packing their trunks, likewise those 
 in the languid shade of the Florida palms; they'll 
 be listing it on the stock exchange in New York, 
 'and the breath of Eden will waft itself o'er plain 
 and valley until " he stopped suddenly, as Mrs. 
 Thornton's voice reached him. 
 
 " I am going to walk back, Robert." 
 'Yes; but, Naida," Thornton protested, 
 " you're not strong enough yet." 
 
 "Don't you understand?" she cried, half 
 laughing, half sobbing. " There is no ' yet ' 
 I am cured, dear all cured. I'm well and 
 strong. Try to understand, Robert oh, I'm so 
 happy, so so thankful. I know it's miraculous, 
 that it's almost impossible to believe but try to 
 understand." 
 
 " I am trying to," said Thornton numbly, watch- 
 ing her as she moved about. " And it seems as 
 though I were in a dream that this isn't real 
 that you're not real." 
 
 " It's not a dream," she said. " Oh, I'm so 
 strong again. Why, Robert, it would be just as 
 absurd for me to be wheeled back in that chair as 
 for you to be and besides I have no right to do 
 that now. It would be a sacrilege, profaning the 
 gratitude in my heart I am cured and these poor 
 people here must see that I am cured Robert, 
 we must leave that wheel-chair here that others, 
 poor sufferers who will come now, will see and be-
 
 THE AFTERMATH 135 
 
 Jieve and be aired too. And, Robert, in some 
 way, I do not know just how, we who are rich 
 must do something to help people to get here." 
 
 " Naida," said Thornton, his voice low, shaken, 
 " I feel as though I were in another world. I 
 have seen what I can hardly make myself believe 
 that I have seen. I can't explain I am speak- 
 ing, but my very voice seems strange to me. I 
 feel as you do about helping others how could 
 I feel otherwise? What we could do I do not 
 know as yet, either but I will do anything. I 
 was a scoffing fool and you were cured before 
 my eyes a boy was cured and that other, 
 deformed as no creature was ever deformed be- 
 fore, was cured " Thornton's lips quivered, and 
 he hid his face in his hands. 
 
 ''While the iron is hot strike," murmured 
 Madison. He gazed a moment longer at the 
 group Mrs. Thornton's hand was on her hus- 
 band's shoulder now then his eyes roved over 
 the frenzied scenes still being enacted everywhere 
 upon the lawn. "I wonder?" he muttered. 
 The frown on his forehead cleared suddenly. 
 " Of course ! " said he to Pale Face Harry. " It's 
 a cinch it's as good as done ! " 
 
 Pale Face Harry stared at him queerly. 
 
 " No, Harry," smiled Madison, " my pulse is 
 quite normal now, thank you. Listen. This is 
 where we call the first showdown on cold hands 
 and the dealer slips himself an ace." He drew a 
 key from his pocket and put it in Pale Face Harry's 
 hand. " That's the key of the small trunk in my
 
 136 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 room at the hotel front room, right hand side 
 of the hall. There's a check-book in the tray 
 and I'll give you twenty minutes to get back here 
 with it. You'll find me somewhere around here, 
 but you needn't let the whole earth in on the pre- 
 sentation see ? Now beat it 1 " 
 
 As Pale Face Harry hurried away, Madison, 
 seemingly as aimless, as hysterical as the hundreds 
 about him, moved here and there, but unostenta- 
 tiously he kept nearing the upper end of the lawn, 
 and, finally, hidden by the woodshed at the fur- 
 ther end of the cottage, he slipped quickly around 
 to the rear. Here the garden stretched almost to 
 the edge of the sandy beach not a soul was in 
 sight and the beat of the surf deadened the 
 sound from the front lawn to little more than a 
 low, indistinct murmur. 
 
 Quickly now, Madison stepped to where one of 
 the old-fashioned windows, that swung inward 
 from the center like double doors, was open, and, 
 reaching in his hand, tapped sharply twice in suc- 
 cession with his knuckles on the pane. The sill 
 was not quite on a level with his shoulders and he 
 could see inside it was Helena's room, and the 
 door to the hall was open. Again he knocked. 
 Came then the sound of footsteps and from the 
 hall the Flopper's -face peered cautiously around 
 the jamb of the door. 
 
 " Tell Helena to come here," called Madison 
 softly. 
 
 The Flopper turned his head, called obediently, 
 and in a dazed sort of way came himself to the
 
 9THE AFTERMATH 137 
 
 window. His "face was haggard, and he shivered 
 as he licked his lips. 
 
 " I pulled de stunt," said the Flopper in a 
 croaking voice, " but de kid Doc did youse 
 see de kid? I got de shakes it's like de whole 
 of hell an' de other place was loose, an' Helena's 
 gone batty, an' pipe her, dere she is." 
 
 Into the room came Helena, her face like chalk 
 all color gone from even her lips. She clutched 
 at the window beside the Flopper for support. 
 
 " I'm frightened," she whispered. " We've 
 gone too far it's it's John Madison, I'm 
 frightened." 
 
 Madison did not speak for a moment Mad- 
 ison was a consummate leader. He looked, smil- 
 ing reassuringly, from one to the other and 
 then leaned soothingly, confidentially, in over the 
 sill. 
 
 41 1 know how you feel felt just the same my- 
 self for a bit," said he quietly. " But now look 
 here, you've got to pull yourselves together 
 there's nothing to be afraid of. It's natural 
 enough. It's faith, Helena and that's what 
 we were banking on only not quite so hard. 
 That kid and Mrs. Thornton annexed the real 
 brand, that's all and when the genuine thing is 
 on tap I cross my fingers and yell for faith 
 there's nothing to stop it. And that's the way it's 
 got both of you too, eh? Well, that only makes 
 our game the safer and the more certain, doesn't 
 it? So, come on now, pull yourselves together." 
 
 ** In de last act when I was gettin' me head into
 
 138 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 joint," mumbled the Flopper, " was when de kid 
 yelled I can hear it yet, an' " 
 
 "Forget it!" Madison broke in a little 
 sharply; then, tactfully, his voice full of unbounded 
 admiration : " You're an artist, Flopper a 
 wonder. You pulled the greatest act that was 
 ever on the boards, and you pulled it as no other 
 man on earth could have pulled it. Flopper, you 
 make me feel humble when I look at you." 
 
 " Swipe me ! " said the Flopper, brightening. 
 " D'ye mean it, Doc honest? " 
 
 "Mean it!" ejaculated Madison. "You're 
 the whole thing, Flopper you win. Come on 
 now, Helena, buck up we've got another little 
 act due in about fifteen minutes don't let a lot 
 of yowling rubes get your goat. Why, say, we've 
 got the whole show on the stampede and we've 
 got to rush our luck." 
 
 " Sure ! " said the Flopper. " Dat's de way to 
 talk leave it to de Doc every time I ain't 
 feazed half de way I was." 
 
 " I'm all right," said Helena a little tremu- 
 lously. " What is it we're to do? " 
 
 " Good ! " said Madison, smiling at her ap- 
 provingly. " That sounds better. Now listen 
 and listen hard. From this minute this cottage is 
 the Shrine. Get that ? Shrine. You've got to 
 keep the hush falling here, and keep it falling all 
 the time a sort of holy, hallowed silence, under- 
 stand? Lay it on thick make the crowd stand 
 back make the guy that comes in here feel as 
 though he ought to come in on his knees and as if
 
 THE AFTERMATH 139 
 
 he'd be struck dead if he didn't. Get the slow 
 music and the low lights working. And keep the 
 Patriarch well back of the drop except when he's 
 on for a turn. Get me ? He's no side-show with 
 a barker in front of the tent don't forget that 
 for a minute. The harder it is to see the Patri- 
 arch and the less he's seen, the bigger he plays up 
 when he's on. He goes to no man under any con- 
 ditions, and the only man or woman that gets to 
 him is through faith and supplication, and a dou- 
 ble order of it at that. Keep the solemn, breath- 
 less tap turned on all the time." 
 
 Helena looked at him with a strange little smile 
 quivering on her lips. 
 
 " It's a good thing I've got a sense of humor," 
 she said slowly, " or else I think I'd I'd " 
 
 " No, you wouldn't," said Madison cheerfully. 
 " But time's flying. You're going to have visit- 
 ors in a few minutes, and here's where the Patri- 
 arch gets tucked away out of sight behind the veil 
 for a starter, leaving his presence hovering and 
 throbbing all around in the air you stay with 
 him, Flopper, in a back room somewhere and hold 
 his hand. Where is he now? " 
 
 " In his armchair in the sitting-room," said 
 Helena. " And he's still listening in that queer 
 way he did out on the lawn. I think he knows in 
 a little way what's happened." 
 
 " That's good," said Madison; " it'll make him 
 happy. Well, lead him gently into retirement. I 
 guess that's all now hurry." 
 
 " Who is it that's coming? " interposed Helena
 
 i 4 o THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 quickly, as Madison started away from the win- 
 dow. 
 
 Madison grinned. 
 
 " Some friends of the Flopper's. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Thankoffering you'll like them im- 
 mensely, Helena. The lady walks quite well now, 
 and" 
 
 " Walks ! " exclaimed the Flopper, who evi- 
 dently had not assimilated Madison's previous 
 reference to Mrs. Thornton. " De lady dat I 
 come wid in de private car walks? " 
 
 " Of course," said Madison pleasantly. 
 
 " Cured? All cured? " gasped the Flopper. 
 
 "Of course," said Madison again compla- 
 cently. 
 
 " Say," said the Flopper, " say, Tm goin' dippy. 
 Another one de same as de kid, Doc? " 
 
 " Same as the kid, Flopper faith." 
 
 " Swipe me I " said the Flopper Helplessly.
 
 XII 
 
 SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY 
 
 9 
 
 BY the wheel-chair, Mrs. Thornton, her 
 husband and Doc Madison were in ear- 
 nest conversation and around them 
 was a mass of people. The crowd had 
 divided into two, or, rather, was constantly com- 
 ing and going between two points young 
 Holmes and Mrs. Thornton and still the hys- 
 teria was upon men and women, still that waver- 
 ing, moanlike sound floated over the lawn. 
 
 " I am stunned and stupified," Madison was 
 saying, and his hand trembled visibly in its out- 
 flung gesture. " I am not, I am afraid, a man of 
 deep sensibilities, but I cannot help feeling that 
 I have been permitted, been chosen even, to wit- 
 ness this sight, a sight that will stay with me till I 
 die, for some great, ulterior purpose. It's as 
 though this place were hallowed, set apart; that 
 here, if only one has faith, that man's miraculous 
 power is boundless that I should help someway. 
 I I'm afraid I don't explain myself well." 
 
 " I know what you mean," Mrs. Thornton re- 
 turned eagerly. " It is what I was saying to my 
 husband to make this place known, to help to 
 bring suffering people here."
 
 142 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 Madison nodded silently. 
 
 " And if you, who have no personal cause for 
 gratitude, feel like that, how much more should 
 we who who oh, there are no words to tell 
 it my heart is too full" Mrs. Thornton 
 smiled through tears. " Robert, you said you 
 would do anything." 
 
 " Yes, dear," Thornton answered gravely. 
 " But what ? We cannot do things in a moment. 
 If money " 
 
 Madison shook his head. 
 
 " It's beyond money," he said. " Money is 
 only a secondary consideration. It's the needs of 
 the place that are paramount. It's not so much 
 the bringing of people here they will hear of 
 what has taken place and will come of their own 
 accord, they will flock here in numbers as time 
 goes on. But then what? What can be done 
 with them in this little village? For a time per- 
 haps they could be accommodated but after 
 that they must be turned away." 
 
 " Turned away ! " exclaimed Mrs. Thornton, in 
 a hurt cry. " Turned away from hope to bit- 
 terness and misery again ! No, no, they must not ! 
 Why " she grasped her husband's arm agitat-, 
 edly " why couldn't we buy land and put little 
 houses upon it where they could stay? " 
 
 Madison leaned suddenly toward her. 
 
 " I believe you've hit on the idea, Mrs. Thorn- 
 ton," he said excitedly. "Why not? It would 
 be the finest thing that was ever done in the world. 
 But why not go further this should not be a
 
 " SAID THE SPIDER " 143 
 
 private enterprise with the burden on the few." 
 He turned abruptly to Mr. Thornton. " What a 
 monument from grateful hearts, what a tribute to 
 that saintly soul a huge sanatorium, built and prop- 
 erly endowed, would be ! And it is feasible 
 purely from the voluntary contributions of those 
 who come here and have money free as the air 
 to the poor who are sick free to all, for that 
 matter no one asked to give but the poorest 
 would gladly lay down their mites." 
 
 " Yes oh, yes ! " cried Mrs. Thornton raptly, 
 
 "Yes," admitted Mr. Thornton thoughtfully; 
 " that might be done." 
 
 " There is no doubt of it," asserted Madison 
 enthusiastically. " It needs but -the initiative on 
 the part of some one, on our part, and the rest will 
 take care of itself. But we must, of course, have 
 the endorsement of the Patriarch why not go 
 to the cottage now, at once, and talk it over? " 
 
 " Can we see him? " asked Mrs. Thornton wist- 
 fully. " 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
 
 144 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 in an impotent gesture " we can only accept it 
 unquestioningly, as a mighty thing, an actual, liv- 
 ing, existent thing, even if we cannot fully under- 
 stand. 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." 
 
 u You know them, don't you?" Thornton in- 
 quired. 
 
 Madison smiled, a little strangely, a little depre- 
 catingly. 
 
 " 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 immeasur- 
 able it was." 
 
 " Let us go to the cottage, then," said Thorn- 
 ton. " 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
 
 " SAID THE SPIDER " 145 
 
 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, in- 
 stead of always being a source of worry and anx- 
 iety to you. Come, let us go." 
 
 " If you will walk slowly," suggested Madison, 
 " I'll speak to the little Holmes boy and his par- 
 ents, 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 " 
 
 " Never mind about that now," said Madison- 
 rapidly. " I want the crowd kept away from the 
 doors of the bank vault if they show any tendency" 
 to get too close, though I don't think that'll hap- 
 pen they're too numbed and scared yet. But 
 you know the game. Keep the awe going and the 1 
 ' holy ground ' signs up. Anybody that steps 
 across that stretch between the trees and the cot- 
 tage on and after the present date of writing does 
 it with bowed head and his shoes off get the 
 idea?" 
 
 Pale Face Harry grinned. 
 
 " That's easy," he said. " Anything'd steer
 
 1 4 6 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 'em now they're like sheep. Leave it to me to 
 keep the soft pedal on." 
 
 With a nod, Madison turned away, the tense 
 expression on his face assumed again and pres- 
 ently he was talking to Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, and 
 patting the boy's head in a clumsy, overwrought 
 way. 
 
 "I I don't dar'st to go," said Mrs. Holmes, 
 clutching wildly at the boy, still sobbing, still be- 
 yond control of herself. 
 
 " But Mrs. Thornton is going," said Madison 
 gently, " and I know your gratitude is no less than 
 hers it couldn't be less with this little lad re- 
 stored to you. I am sure you want to show it 
 don't you?" 
 
 " I think we'd orter go, ma," said Mr. Holmes 
 uneasily 
 
 The boy put his hand in Madison's. 
 
 " I want to go, mister," he choked. ' Take 
 me, mister, won't you ? " 
 
 " Yes, I think we'd orter go," repeated Mr. 
 Holmes. " Come along, ma," he said, taking his 
 wife's arm. 
 
 It was a strange group the Thorntons, rich, 
 
 refined, to whom luxury was necessity ; the Holmes, 
 
 | poor, uncultured, coarsely dressed; and Madison, 
 
 who walked with set face, head lowered a little, 
 
 his pace slowing perceptibly, humbly it seemed, the 
 
 nearer he came to the cottage door. Neither 
 
 Thornton, nor Holmes, nor Holmes' wife spoke. 
 
 -Mrs. Thornton's arm was flung around the boy's 
 
 shoulder, and he kept looking up into her tearful
 
 " SAID THE SPIDER " 147 
 
 face there was a bond between them that, 
 young as he was, held him in its thrall. Out 
 across the lawn, dotted here and there, in knots 
 and groups and little crowds, men and women 
 stopped where they stood and watched, making no 
 effort to follow and some, at the renewed evi- 
 dence of the miraculous, once more so vividly be- 
 fore their eyes, dropped again to their knees. 
 
 They reached the door, and Madison drew back 
 a little and with the others waited silently after he 
 had knocked. Then the door opened slowly, and 
 Helena, slim and girlish in her simple white dress, 
 appeared upon the threshold. Her great dark 
 eyes travelled slowly from one to another, and 
 then her face lighted with a gentle smile. 
 
 " Miss Vail," said Madison diffidently, " this is 
 Mrs. Thornton and her husband, and the little lad, 
 with his parents, who owes so much to the Patri- 
 arch, and they have come to " 
 
 " To try and say a little of what is in their 
 hearts " Mrs. Thornton stepped impulsively 
 forward and held out her hands to Helena and 
 then, breaking down suddenly, she began to sob, 
 and the two were in each other's arms, Mrs. 
 Thornton's head buried on Helena's shoulder, 
 Helena's face lowered, her brown hair mingling 
 with the gold of the other's, her arms about the 
 frail form that shook convulsively. 
 
 Doc Madison shot a covert glance at the three 
 behind him Thornton, and Holmes, and Mrs. 
 Holmes. Holmes, with downcast eyes, was shuf- 
 fling awkwardly from foot to foot; Mrs. Holmes,.
 
 I 4 8 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 her woman's instinct touched, was watching the 
 scene with face aglow, her eyes moist anew; 
 Thornton was staring fascinated at Helena, a 
 sort of breathless, wondering admiration in his 
 eyes. 
 
 Madison involuntarily followed Thornton's 
 look; then stole a glance back at Thornton again 
 Thornton was still gazing intently at Helena. 
 
 " Say," observed Madison to himself, " the 
 longer you live the more you learn, don't you? 
 That's the kind of stuff Helena wears from now 
 on, the clinging white with the bare throat effect 
 and all that. Why, say, like that she's what the 
 poets call radiantly divine eh, what?" 
 
 Mrs. Thornton raised her head, and her hands 
 creeping to Helena's face brushed the brown hair 
 tenderly back from the white forehead. 
 
 " Oh, how good and sweet and pure you are ! " 
 she murmured brokenly. 
 
 A quick, sudden flush, passing to all but Madi- 
 son as one of demure and startled modesty, swept 
 in a crimson tide to Helena's face. 
 
 " You you must not say that," she faltered, 
 shaking her head. "I you must not say that." 
 
 Mrs. Thornton smiled at her and slipped 
 her arm affectionately around Helena's waist. 
 
 " I could not help it, dear," she whispered. 
 " It came spontaneously. And it makes me so 
 happy to find you like this, and it makes it so much 
 more a joy in doing what we have come to talk to 
 you about." 
 
 " What you have come to talk to me about? "
 
 " SAID THE SPIDER " 149 
 
 Helena, steadying herself, repeated the words 
 almost composedly. 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Mrs. Thornton, an eagerness 
 in her voice again. "But may we come in? 
 Is it" 
 
 " All may come in here," Helena answered 
 softly, " and " her eyes met Thornton's fixed 
 gaze and dropped quickly- " please come in," she 
 ended abruptly.
 
 XIII 
 
 REAL MONEY 
 
 f """^HE two women passed inside the cot- 
 tage, Mrs. Thornton holding out her 
 hand again to the little lad; while 
 B.. Holmes and his wife followed hesi- 
 tantly, awed. In the rear, Thornton grasped 
 Madison's arm suddenly. 
 
 " I never saw such a beautiful face," he whis- 
 pered tensely. " It's wonderful." 
 
 ' Yes," assented Madison. " But everything 
 here seems full of a rare, strange beauty, a hal- 
 lowed something it lifts one beyond material 
 things. You feel it a great, calm solemnity all 
 about you." 
 
 He closed the door softly behind him. 
 
 Mrs. Thornton's eyes swept questioningly, anx- 
 iously and a little timidly about the plain, simple, 
 quiet room; and then she spoke, her voice uncon- 
 sciously hushed: 
 
 "He he is not here?" 
 
 Helena shook her head, as she led Mrs. Thorn- 
 ton to a chair. 
 
 " Not now," she said in a low voice. ' The 
 strain of this afternoon has left him very weary 
 and very tired much has gone out of him in re- 
 sponse to the faith he felt but could not see." 
 
 150
 
 REAL MONEY 151 
 
 " But he knows? " said Mrs. Thornton eagerly, 
 reaching for Helena's hand. " He knows? " 
 
 u Yes," Helena replied quietly, " he knows. 
 He always knows." She nodded gravely to the 
 others. " Please sit down," she said. 
 
 Madison quietly took the chair nearest the ta- 
 ble; Thornton one a little in front of Madison and 
 nearer his wife and Helena, who were close by the 
 big, open fireplace; the two Holmes sat down on 
 the edges of chairs a little behind Madison; while 
 young Holmes knelt, his arms in Mrs. Thornton's 
 lap, his head turned a little sideways, his chin 
 cupped in one hand, as he stared breathlessly 
 around him. 
 
 It was the boy who broke the momentary si- 
 lence. 
 
 "Ain't that other fellow here, neither the 
 fellow that was worse'n me? " he whispered. 
 
 Helena leaned toward him. 
 'Yes; he is here," she answered, smiling 
 sweetly. " He is with the Patriarch." She 
 lifted her head to include the others in her words. 
 " It is very wonderful, his gratitude. He will not 
 leave the Patriarch he says he will not leave 
 him ever, that all he has to give for the debt he 
 owes is the life that the Patriarch gave back to 
 him, and he will listen to nothing but that he 
 should devote that life to the Patriarch's serv- 
 ice." 
 
 " I'd like to, too," said young Holmes, with a 
 quick flush on his face. " Can I, miss can 
 I?"
 
 152 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 " Perhaps," said Helena gently. " Who knows 
 what there may be that you can do ? " 
 
 " Dear boy," said Mrs. Thornton, stroking the 
 lad's head. She looked quickly at Helena. " We, 
 too, are grateful, more than there are words to 
 tell, and we, too, would like to show our gratitude. ! 
 We are rich and money " 
 
 " Money! " the word came in shocked, hurt in- 
 terruption from Helena, as a signal flashed from 
 Madison's eyes. " The Patriarch does not do 
 these things for money it would be a bitter 
 grief to him to be misjudged in that way, even in 
 thought. It is the love in his heart for the suf- 
 fering ones, and his power goes out to all who ask 
 it freely, with no thought of recompense or gain, 
 and his joy and happiness is the joy and happiness 
 of others." 
 
 " And right off the bat too ! " said Madison ad- 
 miringly to himself. " Now, wouldn't that get 
 you ! Say, could you beat it could you beat 
 it!" 
 
 " Oh, I did not mean that," said Mrs. Thornton 
 almost piteously. " Please, please do not think 
 so, for I know so well that money in a personal 
 sense could have no place here, that it would in- 
 deed be sacrilege. It is in quite another way 
 Robert, Mr. Madison, you explain what we would 
 like to do." 
 
 It was Madison who explained. 
 
 " It is Mrs. Thornton's idea, Miss Vail," he 
 said earnestly; " and it is one that I know will 
 realize the Patriarch's dearest wish to extend
 
 REAL MONEY 153 
 
 his sphere of helpfulness to others, to reach out 
 to all who are stricken and have faith to come. I 
 remember his writing that on the slate, which he 
 used for conversation before his sight was com- 
 pletely taken from him. I remember the words 
 as though they were before me now: 'I have 
 dreamed often of a wider field, of reaching out to 
 help the thousands beyond this little town it 
 would be wondrous joy.' ' 
 
 " Yes? " said Helena in a suppressed voice. 
 
 " In a way," Madison went on gravely, " his 
 dream is already realized. What has happened 
 here this afternoon will in a few hours be known 
 to the whole civilized world, and there will be no 
 room for incredulity or doubt on whatever 
 ground people see fit to base their belief, they must 
 still believe; and, believing, they will come here 
 in ever increasing numbers but this little village 
 is totally inadequate to accommodate them. At 
 first, yes, as I said to Mrs. Thornton; but after- 
 wards no. Mrs. Thornton's idea, Mr. Thorn- 
 ton's idea and my own, if i may say so, is to build 
 and endow a great sanr.torium that, in consonance 
 with the Patriarch's ideals, shall be free to all 
 and we feel that the money for this purpose will 
 come gladly and spontaneously, as it so appropri- 
 ately should come, from those who find joy and 
 peace and health again at the Patriarch's hands." 
 
 Helena half rose from her chair, as she stole 
 a veiled glance at Madison. 
 
 " It would be wonderful," she said, with a lit- 
 tle catch in her voice. " And he it would be
 
 154 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 the one thing in the world for him. But but 
 it would take a great deal of money." 
 
 'Yes," said Madison slowly; " at least half a 
 million." 
 
 Thornton turned toward Madison. 
 
 "As much as that?" he asked tentatively. 
 
 " I should say so," replied Madison thought- 
 fully. ' You see, it's the endowment after all 
 that is the most important. Say that the build- 
 ing and equipment cost only a hundred thousand, 
 that would only leave an income, from the other 
 four hundred thousand at six per cent., of twenty- 
 four thousand dollars not enough in itself even, 
 but it would be augmented of course by the con- 
 tributions that would still go on." 
 
 Thornton nodded his head. 
 
 "That is so," he agreed; "but there is the 
 time to consider it would take a long time to 
 raise that amount." 
 
 " No," said Madison. " A few months at the 
 outside. Thornton " he reached out and laid 
 his hand impressively on the other's sleeve 
 " we are not dealing with ordinary things here 
 we have witnessed this afternoon a sight that 
 should teach us that. Here, in this very room, 
 beside us now, your wife, that little boy, is evi- 
 dence of power beyond anything we have ever 
 known before. Have we not that same power to 
 count on still? It would be an ingrate heart in- 
 deed that, owing all, returned nothing." 
 
 " Yes," murmured Mrs. Thornton. " Mr. 
 Madison is right. I know it, I feel it the
 
 REAL MONEY 155 
 
 money will come faster than we have any idea 
 of." ' 
 
 Madison smiled at her quietly. 
 
 " It will come," he said. " People will give 
 
 their money, their jewels, anything, and give joy- 
 
 ' fully and until the amount in hand is large 
 
 enough to warrant beginning operations, Miss 
 
 Vail naturally will be its guardian." 
 
 "I?" said Helena hesitatingly. "I I am 
 only a girl, I would not know what to do." 
 
 ' You would not have to do anything, Miss 
 Vail," Madison informed her reassuringly. 
 " When the time comes for advice, the making 
 of plans and the carrying of them out, the bright- 
 est minds in this country will be offered freely 
 and voluntarily, you will see." 
 
 " And meanwhile," inquired Thornton he 
 had been studying Helena's profile intently, 
 " would you propose keeping the contributions 
 here?" 
 
 "Of course!" said Madison. "And not 
 only here, but openly displayed as an added in- 
 centive for others to give if added incentive be 
 needed. Here, for instance " he rose as he 
 spoke, went to the mantel over the fireplace and 
 jlifted down a quaint, japanned box, fashioned in 
 'the shape of a little chest, which he placed upon 
 the table. " And here, too " he crossed to the 
 bookshelves in the alcove, and took down a very 
 old, flexible-covered book. " Once," he said, 
 " the Patriarch showed me this. It was a blank 
 book originally, half of it is blank still; but in
 
 
 156 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 the front, in the Patriarch's own writing, is an 
 essay he wrote in the years gone by on ' The 
 Power of Faith ' what could be more fitting 
 than that the remaining pages should be filled 
 with a record of the contributions to that faith? " 
 He laid the book on the table beside the little 
 chest, and sat down again. " There is no dis- 
 play, no ornamentation, no attempt at anything 
 of that kind it is simplicity, those things 
 serving which are first at hand as it seems to 
 me it should be those who give record their 
 names and gifts in this book the little chest to 
 hold the gifts is open, free to the inspection of 
 all." 
 
 "But is that wise?" demurred Thornton. 
 " So large a sum of money as must accumulate to 
 be left openly about? Would it not be a tempta- 
 tion to some to steal? Might it not even endan- 
 ger Miss Vail and the Patriarch himself 
 subject them, indeed, to attack?" 
 
 " I get your' idea," said Madison to himself 
 while he gazed at Thornton in pained surprise; 
 " but there'll never be more than the day's catch 
 in the box at a time, though of course you don't 
 know that. You see, we'll empty it every night, 
 and start it off fresh every morning, with a trinket 
 or two put back for bait. I'm glad you men- 
 tioned it though, it's a little detail I mustn't forget 
 to speak to the Flopper about." But aloud he 
 said, and there was a sort of shocked awe in his 
 voice: "Steal here! In this sacred place! 
 No man would dare the most hardened crimi-
 
 REAL MONEY 157 
 
 nal would draw back. Why do even we who sit 
 here speak as we have been speaking with hushed 
 and lowered voices? that very sense of a pres- 
 ence unseen around us, that hovers over us, is a 
 mightier safeguard than the strongest bolts and 
 locks, than the steel-barred vaults of any bank. 
 It would seem indeed to profane our own faith 
 even to entertain such an idea to me this place 
 is a solemn shrine, and there is only purity and 
 faith and stillness here, the dwelling place of a 
 power as compassionate as it is mighty." 
 
 Madison stopped abruptly and a silence fell. 
 Each seemed busy with their own thoughts. 
 About them was quiet, stillness, peace twilight 
 was falling, and a soft, mellow light was in the 
 room. 
 
 " No one would dare " the words came from 
 Mrs. Thornton in almost breathless corrobora- 
 tion, almost of their own accord it seemed, as 
 though heavy upon her lay the solemnity of her 
 surroundings. 
 
 Madison's hand went to his pocket slowly 
 he drew out his check-book and laid it upon the 
 table. 
 
 " I am not a rich man " his voice was very 
 low, very earnest " but I feel that this is some- 
 ' thing deeper, grander, bigger than anything the 
 world perhaps has ever known before ; something 
 higher and above one's own self; it seems as 
 though here were the chrysalis that, once devel- 
 oped to its perfect state, would sweep pain and 
 sorrow from suffering humanity; it is as though
 
 i 5 8 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 a new, glad era had dawned for all mankind. I 
 am glad to give and humbly proud to have a part 
 in this." He took out his fountain pen, opened 
 the check-book, and began to write. 
 
 Thornton leaned forward a little, watching 
 him. 
 
 Silence fell again there was no sound save 
 the almost inaudible scratching of Madison's pen. 
 Upon Mrs. Thornton's face was a happy, radiant 
 smile; Helena's face was impassive, but in the 
 dark eyes lurked a puzzled light; the two Holmes 
 sat awkwardly, still upon the edges of their chairs, 
 gazing at their son across the room, incredulously, 
 as though they still could not believe and oc- 
 casionally Mrs. Holmes wiped her eyes. 
 
 Madison's pen moved on: " Pay to the order 
 of Miss Helena Vail the sum of ten thousand 
 dollars." He carefully inscribed the amount in 
 numerals in the lower left-hand corner. " Hon- 
 est," he confided to himself, as he signed the 
 check, " I feel so philanthropic I could almost 
 make myself believe I had this money in the bank." 
 He tore the check from its stub, and, standing 
 up, handed it to Helena. " I am not a rich man, 
 Miss Vail, as I said," he smiled gravely, " but I 
 can give this, and I give it with great joy in my 
 heart." 
 
 Helena took the check, glanced at it, gasped a 
 little, lifted her eyes, an instant's mocking glint 
 in them, and veiled them quickly with her long 
 lashes. 
 
 " No " Madison's hand, palm up, went out
 
 REAL MONEY 159 
 
 protestingly " no, do not thank me it is lit- 
 tle enough." He sat down again, drew the 
 Patriarch's blank book toward him, and, on the 
 line beneath the one where the Patriarch had 
 ended his essay with the words, " such is the power 
 of faith," wrote his name and set down the 
 amount of his contribution after it. 
 
 " Ten thousand dollars 1 " it was Mrs. 
 Thornton speaking, as she took the check from 
 Helena. She turned quickly to her husband. 
 " Robert, have you your check-book here? " 
 
 Thornton shook his head. 
 
 " No, dear," he said. " I'm afraid I haven't." 
 
 " Well, it doesn't matter," said Mrs. Thorn- 
 ton brightly. " You can use one of Mr. Madi- 
 son's checks and write the name of your own bank 
 on it you've often done that, you know." 
 
 " A suggestion," said Madison to himself, 
 "for which I thank you, Mrs. Thornton it 
 sounds so much less crude coming from you than 
 from me." But aloud he said courteously. 
 " Take my pen, Mr. Thornton." 
 
 " Thank you," said Thornton, as Madison 
 placed it in his hand. 
 
 Mrs. Thornton and her husband had their heads 
 together now, and were whispering Thornton 
 with his eyes on Helena, who sat with lowered 
 head, twirling Madison's check in her hands. 
 Then Thornton drew the check-book toward him, 
 scratched out the printed name of the bank that 
 it bore, wrote in another, and went on filling out 
 the check.
 
 160 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 " Eeny-meeny-miny-mo," said Madison to him- 
 self. " The suspense is awful. How much does 
 he raise the ante? Next to the miracle, this is 
 the first real thrill I've had I feel like an ele- 
 vator starting down quick." 
 
 As Madison had done, Thornton tore out the 
 check and handed it to Helena. Helena stared 
 at it, lifted her eyes to Thornton, flushed and 
 looked down at the check again. 
 
 " Fifty thousand" she murmured breathlessly. 
 
 "Splendid!" cried Madison enthusiastically, 
 rising from his chair and pushing the newly estab- 
 lished record of contributions toward Thornton. 
 " Splendid ! There's sixty thousand of the five 
 hundred already. Splendid! " 
 
 Young Holmes ran toward his parents. 
 
 " I want to give too, dad," he whispered. " I 
 want to give too." 
 
 " Reckon so," said Holmes, getting up heavily. 
 " Reckon so an' I was a-goin' to. I ain't got 
 much though," he added timorously, as his hand 
 went into his pocket. 
 
 There was a little exclamation from Helena, 
 and she moved a step forward as though to in- 
 terpose. Madison looked at her quickly and 
 quietly stepped around the table, placing himself 
 between her and Holmes; and, facing Holmes, 
 leaned over the table from the far side toward the 
 other. 
 
 " It's not the amount, Holmes," he said kindly. 
 " In the broad, true sense the amount counts for 
 nothing all cannot give the same."
 
 REAL MONEY 161 
 
 " Yes," said Holmes. " Reckon that's the way 
 I feel." He counted the bills in his hand, and 
 dropped them into the little japanned box; then 
 scrawled his name in the book beneath Thorn- 
 ton's, adding the amount eight dollars. 
 
 Madison looked around the group benignantly. 
 
 " I think they should know out there what 
 we have done," he said, pointing toward the 
 lawn. " Let us go and tell them, not in any set 
 speech, but just simply each of us speaking 
 to a few the few will tell others. Shall we 
 go?" 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Thornton. "Yes; let us. 
 tell them." She turned to Helena and kissed her. 
 " Try and come often to see me, dear we shall 
 be here now for a little while at least. Is it ask- 
 ing too much? Robert will bring you back and 
 forth from the village. And perhaps, if I may, 
 I will come out here to see you may I ? " 
 
 " I shall be very glad to do as my wife sug- 
 gests," said Thornton, holding out his hand. 
 "You will come, Miss Vail?" 
 
 ' You are very good, both of you," Helena an- 
 swered simply. She raised her eyes to Thornton 
 her hand was still in his. " Yes, I will try to 
 come." 
 
 " Oh, break away! " muttered Madison impa- 
 tiently but silently. He stepped to the door 
 and opened it. " Will you lead the way, Mrs. 
 Thornton?" he said calmly. 
 
 Thornton and his wife passed out; and the 
 Holmes, with clumsy, earnest words upon their
 
 162 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 lips to Helena, followed. Madison hung back 
 then stepped quickly to Helena. 
 
 " Tear up that check of mine so small you can't 
 find the pieces, Helena," he said hurriedly; " and 
 send Thornton's right off to any old bank you like 
 in New York. Endorse it, and write them a note 
 saying you wish to open an account. Enclose 
 your signature, and tell them to mail back the 
 bank-book, a check-book, deposit slips and all that. 
 They'll know by the newspapers that Thornton's 
 subscribed fifty thousand before they get the check, 
 and they'll feel honored to be your depository. 
 Do it to-night, understand?" 
 
 " Yes," said Helena, nodding her head. " I'll 
 see to it all right." Then, a little perturbed: 
 " But those poor Holmes and their eight dollars, 
 Doc, I " 
 
 " Now don't be greedy, Helena," said Madi- 
 son cheerfully. " You mustn't expect everybody 
 to hand out ten and fifty thousand, just because 
 Thornton and I did try and appreciate the lit- 
 tle things of life too." 
 
 " Oh ! " exclaimed Helena angrily. " Doc 
 Madison, I'd like to " 
 
 ' Yes, all right, of course," interrupted Madi- 
 son, grinning. " Good-by, that's all I'm off 
 see, they're waiting for me " and leaving 
 Helena with an outraged little flush upon her 
 cheek, he hurried through the door after the 
 others.
 
 XIV 
 
 KNOTTING THE STRINGS 
 
 IT is a very old saying, and therefore of 
 course indisputably true, that some have 
 greatness thrust upon them. True of men, 
 it is, in one instance at least, true of places 
 Needley, from an unheard of, modest, innocu- 
 ous and unassuming little hamlet, leaped in a flash 
 into the focus of the world's eyes. In huge head- 
 lines the papers in every city of every State car- 
 ried it on their front pages. And while the first 
 astounding despatch from the metropolitan news- 
 paper man was being copied by leading dailies 
 everywhere, there came on top of it, clinching 
 its veracity beyond possibility of doubt, the news 
 that Robert Thornton, the well known Chicago 
 multi-millionaire, had given fifty thousand dol- 
 lars to the cause. A man, much less a multi-mil- 
 lionaire, does not give fifty thousand dollars for a 
 bubble, so the managing editors of the leading 
 dailies rushed for their star reporters and the 
 star reporters rushed for Needley and the red- 
 haired, sorrowful-faced man in the Needley sta- 
 tion grew haggard, tottered on the verge of 
 collapse, and, between the sheafs of flimsy that 
 the reporters fought for the opportunity of push- 
 ing at him, wired desperately for a relief. 
 
 163
 
 1 64 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 Needley awoke and came to life as from the 
 dead. There was bustle, activity, and suppressed 
 and unsuppressed excitement on every hand 
 the Waldorf Hotel once more opened its doors 
 the Congress Hotel was already full. 
 
 The reporters interviewed everybody with but 
 one exception the Patriarch. 
 
 They interviewed Madison and Madison 
 talked to them gravely, quietly, a little self-dep- 
 recatingly, a little abashed at the thought of 
 personal exploitage. 
 
 " I wouldn't be interviewed at all," he told 
 them, " if it were not that mankind at large is 
 entitled to every bit of evidence that can be ob- 
 tained. Yes; I gave what I could afford, but it 
 was Holmes, a poor man, who gave most of all 
 have you seen him? Myself? What does that 
 matter? I am unknown, my personality, unlike 
 Mr. Thornton's, can carry no weight. I am, I 
 suppose, what you might call a rolling stone, a 
 world wanderer. My parents left me a moderate 
 fortune, and I have travelled pretty well and 
 pretty constantly all over the world during the 
 last twelve or fifteen years. How did I come to 
 Needley? Well, you can call it luck, or some- 
 thing more than that, whichever way it appeals 
 to you. I was feeling seedy, a little off-color, 
 and I started down for a rest and lay-off in Maine. 
 I happened to ask a man in Portland if he knew 
 of a quiet place. He meant to be humorous, I 
 imagine. He said Needley was the quietest 
 place he knew of. I took him at his word."
 
 KNOTTING THE STRINGS 165 
 
 " But how do you account for these miraculous 
 cures? " they asked. 
 
 " You have seen them the results," Madi- 
 son replied. " You know the cures to be living, 
 vital, irrefutable facts don't you?" 
 
 " Yes," they agreed. 
 
 " Then," said Madison, " there can be but one 
 answer faith. There is no other faith. 
 Are we not, in view of what has happened, of 
 what exists before our very eyes, forced to the 
 belief that faith is the greatest thing, the most 
 potential factor in the world? " 
 
 " And do you believe then that all who come 
 here will be cured? " 
 
 Madison shook his head. 
 
 " Ah, no," he said; " far from it. Many will 
 come with but the semblance of faith, and for 
 those there can be no cure that is evident on 
 the face of it, is it not? " 
 
 They interviewed Thornton and Thornton, 
 too, talked to them, but the very presence of Mrs. 
 Thornton was weightier far than words. 
 
 They interviewed the Holmes, and they inter- 
 viewed Needley individually and collectively; and 
 they interviewed Helena but they did not in- 
 terview the Patriarch. Here Helena barred their 
 way they were free to enter the cottage, to 
 copy the names, the record of gifts inscribed in 
 the book, already a long list for Needley had re- 
 quired no other incentive to give than the exam- 
 ple that had been set but that was all. Quietly, 
 with demure simplicity, Helena, prompted by
 
 1 66 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 Madison, like a priestess who guards some holy, 
 inner shrine, told them that sensational notoriety 
 had no place there and the notoriety for that 
 very cause became the greater! Not that they 
 were denied a sight of the Patriarch's venerable 
 and saintly form they were permitted to catch 
 glimpses of him on the beach, on the lawn, walk- 
 ing with bowed head in meditation, a figure whose 
 simple majesty inspired words and columns of 
 glowing tribute but from personal contact, 
 Helena and the Flopper, always in attendance, 
 warded them off; retreating always to the privacy 
 of the cottage, to the inner rooms. 
 
 All this had taken four days; and now, on the 
 fourth day, there came to Needley the vanguard 
 of those who sought this new healing power * 
 just a few of them, two or three, like far, out- 
 flung skirmishers evidencing the presence of the 
 army corps to follow. With the reporters, as 
 far as Madison was concerned, it was simple 
 enough; he had but to let them go their way, to 
 let them revel in the stories that were on every 
 tongue, to let them view with their own eyes facts, 
 while he, modestly and diffidently, fulh of quiet 
 earnestness, effaced himself, never thrusting him- 
 self forward, talking to them only when they 
 pressed him but the handling of the sufferers 
 who would flock to Needley in response to a news- 
 paper publicity and endorsement that had been 
 beyond his wildest dreams, was quite another mat- 
 ter. Madison viewed the first arrivals
 
 KNOTTING THE STRINGS 167 
 
 brought in from the station on cot beds to the 
 Waldorf Hotel and retired to his room in the 
 Congress Hotel to wrestle with the niceties and 
 minutiae of the problem. 
 
 " You see," said Madison to the tip of his cigar, 
 as he tilted back his chair and extended his legs 
 full length with his heels comfortably up on the 
 table edge, " you see, I believe in faith all right 
 and that's no josh. But the trouble with faith 
 is that it's about the scarcest article on earth > 
 and I haven't got any more Floppers to lead the 
 way." Madison adroitly sent the cigar ash 
 through the window with a tap of his forefinger 
 on the body of the cigar he frowned, and for 
 a long time sat musingly silent. Then he spoke 
 again; this time addressing the toes of his boots: 
 " With the house sold out for the season, the box- 
 office doing itself proud and the audience crazy 
 over the first two acts, how about Act Three 
 h'm? how about Act Three? Kind of a deli- 
 cate proposition, the staging of Act Three and 
 it's time for the curtain to go up. I can hear 'em 
 stamping out front now. I can't pull off any more 
 orgies like last Monday afternoon, even if I 
 wanted to but everybody's got to have a run 
 for their money. Say, how about Act Three?" 
 
 Madison burned up quite a little tobacco in the 
 interval before supper, and quite a little more aft- 
 erward before the setting for his perplexing 
 " Third Act " appeared to unfold itself satisfacto- 
 rily before his mind indeed, it was close onto
 
 1 68 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 half past ten when, by a roundabout way, he very 
 cautiously and silently approached the Patriarch's 
 cottage. 
 
 In the front of the cottage, the Shrine-room, as 
 he christened it, and the Patriarch's sleeping room 
 were both dark. Madison passed around to the 
 beach side here, Helena's room was dark too, 
 but in the Flopper's window, the end room next 
 to the kitchen and woodshed, there was a light. 
 The night was warm, and, though the shade was 
 drawn, the window was open. Madison whistled 
 softly, and the Flopper stuck out his head. 
 
 "Hello, Flopper," said Madison; "come out 
 here I want to have a talk with you. Helena 
 in bed?" 
 
 " No; she's out," replied the Flopper. 
 
 "Well, hurry up I" said Madison. "Come 
 around in front by the trellis where we can see the 
 other fellow first if anybody happens to be stroll- 
 ing about." 
 
 Madison withdrew from the window and 
 walked around to the front of the cottage. Here, 
 a few yards from the porch, by the trellis, already 
 beginning to be leafy green, was a rustic bench 
 on which he seated himself. The moon was not 
 full, but there was light enough to enable him to 
 see across the lawn through the interposing row 
 of maples, and, hidden by the shadows himself, 
 the seat strategetically met his requirements. 
 
 Presently, the Flopper came out of the front 
 door and joined him. 
 
 " Say, Doc," announced the Flopper abruptly,
 
 KNOTTING THE STRINGS 169 
 
 " de Patriarch's been askin' fer youse yesterday 
 an' to-day." 
 
 " Asking? " repeated Madison. 
 
 " Sure," said the Flopper. " He can scrawl if 
 he is blind, can't he? He scrawls yer name on 
 de slate. We can't tell him nothin', an' he's 
 kinder got de fidgets like he t'inks youse had flown 
 de coop." 
 
 " That's so," said Madison. " It is rather 
 difficult to communicate with him, isn't it? I 
 guess we'll have to get him some raised letters." 
 
 " What's them? " inquired the Flopper. 
 
 " I don't know exactly," Madison answered. 
 " I never saw any, but I believe they have such 
 things. Been asking for me, has he? Well, I'll 
 fix it to see him to-morrow. Where did you say 
 Helena had gone? " 
 
 " I said she was out," said the Flopper. " If 
 you ask me where, I'd say de same place as last 
 night an' de night before down to dat private 
 car wid his nibs. Say, dere's some class to dat 
 guy all right, an' I guess Helena ain't got her eyes 
 shut." 
 
 " Hey ! " ejaculated Madison. " What do 
 you mean? " 
 
 "Well, he's got de rocks, ain't he?" declared 
 the Flopper. " Why shouldn't she be after him? 
 Dat's wot we're here fer, ain't it, de whole bunch 
 of us? an' she ain't t'rowin' us, is she, if she 
 sees a chanst to pick up somet'ing on her own? " 
 
 Madison turned quickly on the Flopper. 
 
 " You mean," he said sharply, " that there's
 
 1 7 o THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 something going on between Helena and Thorn- 
 ton already? " 
 
 " Aw, stop kiddin' ! " said the Flopper. " Al- 
 ready ! Wot's ' already ' got to do wid it? We 
 ain't none of us church members, are we? Say, 
 where'd you pick up Helena yerself and how 
 long did it take youse? I don't know whether 
 dere's anyt'ing goin' on or not mabbe she's 
 only gettin' lonely youse ain't hung around her 
 much lately, Doc." 
 
 Madison laughed suddenly. 
 
 " You're talking through your hat, Flopper," 
 he said shortly. " You don't know Helena." 
 
 " It's a wise guy dat knows skirts," said the 
 Flopper profoundly; then, with something ap- 
 proaching a sigh: " Say, Doc, dere's a lalapazoo- 
 zoo, a peach down here." 
 
 " Hullo ! " exclaimed Madison, shooting a hur- 
 ried and critical glance at the Flopper in the moon- 
 light. "What's this, Flopper what's this? 
 What have you been up to ? You're supposed to 
 be attending strictly to business." 
 
 " An' you needn't t'ink I ain't," asserted the 
 Flopper. " But I can't stop de town fallin' over 
 itself to bring de whole farmyard, an' eggs, an' 
 butter, an' flour, an' everyt'ing else out here every 
 mornin', can I ? She's blown in twice wid cream 
 fer de Patriarch." 
 
 ; ' WTiat's her name?" inquired Madison 
 quizzically. 
 
 " Mamie Rodgers," said the Flopper. " She 
 says her old man keeps a store in de village."
 
 KNOTTING THE STRINGS 171 
 
 " I know her," nodded Madison. " Pretty 
 girl and all right, Flopper. But mind what you're 
 doing, that's all. I don't want any complications 
 to queer things around here understand ? But 
 let's get down to the business that I came out 
 about the lay from now on. You can put 
 Helena wise." 
 
 " Sure," said the Flopper earnestly. 
 
 " Well then, listen," said Madison. " The pa- 
 tients have begun to arrive there were three of 
 them in to-day. There's no more circus parades 
 everything's under the tent after this. I want 
 you to wean the Patriarch entirely from that front 
 room that's to be free for anybody to enter 
 so's they can drink in atmosphere and see the 
 contribution box. But they don't see the Patri- 
 arch. Get his armchair into his own room, make 
 him comfortable there get the idea? Now, 
 there's no consultation hours the Patriarch 
 can't be seen just by asking for him the only 
 chance they get at the Patriarch is by an exercise 
 of patience that'll work their faith up to a pitch 
 that'll do them some good. The harder it is to 
 get a thing, the more it's worth and the more you 
 want it that's the principle. See? " 
 
 " Sure," said the Flopper, licking his lips. 
 
 " Sometimes," Madison went on, " you're to 
 keep the Patriarch under cover for two or three 
 days, while they hang around working themselves 
 into a frenzy. And when they do see him they 
 have to scramble for it. You don't lead him out 
 to them ever. Make them waylay him when
 
 172 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 you take him for a walk make them crawl and 
 hop and show they've got faith, make them be- 
 lieve they've got faith themselves we'll get 
 some more cures, or near-cures anyway, that way, 
 and we won't get them any other way, 
 and we've got to have some sort of cures coming 
 along fairly regularly. Do you get me, Flopper? 
 If there's a party on a cot a hundred yards away 
 and he begs you to bring the Patriarch to him, 
 say him nay. Everybody has got to get into the 
 reserved paddock by themselves tell them that 
 no man can be cured who has not got the faith to 
 reach the Patriarch by himself tell them to get 
 up and walk to him tell them what you did." 
 
 " Swipe me ! " said the Flopper. " Say, Doc, 
 youse are de one an' only. I gotcher put it up 
 to dem everytime." 
 
 " Exactly," said Madison. " It's their move 
 every minute make them feel that if they don't 
 get what they're after it's their own fault that 
 it's their own lack of faith that's to blame. And 
 the longer they have to wait to see the Patriarch, 
 the more they become impressed that faith is nec- 
 essary, and oh, well, psychology is the greatest 
 jollier of them all." 
 
 "Eh?" inquired the Flopper. "I ain't on 
 dere, Doc." 
 
 " It's very simple," smiled Madison. " They'll 
 want to convince themselves that they have got 
 faith, that it's all bottled up and ready to have 
 the cork drawn when called for, and they'll prove
 
 KNOTTING THE STRINGS 173 
 
 it to themselves by laying an offering upon the 
 shrine as evidence of faith before the goods are 
 delivered." 
 
 " I gotcher! " said the Flopper enthusiastically. 
 " Why say, Doc, dat's de way I'd do meself 
 swipe me, if I wouldn't! " 
 
 " That's the way nearly everybody would do," 
 said Madison, laughing. " There's at least a few 
 similar kinks common to our noble race we're 
 busy most of the time trying to fool ourselves one 
 way or another. Well, that's about all. I can't 
 lay out a programme for every minute of the day 
 you and Helena have got to use your heads 
 and work along that general idea. You play up 
 your gratitude strong. And, oh yes keep the 
 altar box well baited. Let Helena put some of 
 her near-diamond rings and joujabs in until we 
 collect some genuine ones and then keep the 
 genuine ones going change every day for va- 
 riety, you know. And take the silver money out 
 every time you see any in not that we scorn it 
 in the great aggregate, far from it it's just 
 psychology again, Flopper. I went to church 
 once and sat beside a duck with a white waistcoat 
 and chop whiskers, who wore the dollar sign stick- 
 ing out so thick all over him that you couldn't see 
 anything else; and when it came time for collec- 
 tion he peeled a bill off a roll the size of a house, 
 and waited for the collection plate to come along. 
 But he got his eye on the plate a couple of pews 
 ahead and it was full of coppers and chicken feed,
 
 i 7 4 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 and he did the palming act with the bill slicker 
 than a faro dealer and whispered to me to 
 change a quarter for him." 
 
 " And did you ? " asked the Flopper anxiously. 
 
 " Oh, wake up, Flopper!" grinned Madison 4 ^ 
 then, suddenly : " Hullo ! Who's that ? " 
 
 Across the lawn, coming through the row of 
 maples from the direction of the wagon track, 
 appeared two figures. 
 
 " Dat's who," said the Flopper, after gazing an 
 instant. " It's Helena an' Thornton." 
 
 " So it is," agreed Madison. " Get behind the 
 trellis here then it wouldn't do for him to see 
 me out here at this time of night." 
 
 They rose noiselessly from the bench, and 
 slipped quickly behind the trellis. Toward them, 
 walking slowly came the two figures, Helena lean- 
 ing on Thornton's arm. Thornton was talking, 
 but in too low a tone to be overheard. Then a 
 silence appeared to fall between the two, and it 
 was not until they reached the porch, close to 
 Madison and the Flopper, that either spoke again. 
 
 Then Thornton held out his hand. 
 
 " Good-night, Miss Vail and good-by tem- 
 porarily," he said. " I suppose I shall be gone 
 four or five days; I'm going up on the morning 
 train, you know. I wish you'd go as often as you 
 can to see Naida in the car while I'm away will 
 you? Her condition worries me, though she in- 
 sists that she is completely cured, and she will not 
 listen to any advice. I have an idea that she has 
 overtaxed herself apart from her hip disease,
 
 KNOTTING THE STRINGS 175 
 
 her heart was in a very critical state. You'll go 
 to her, won't you? " 
 
 " Yes," said Helena, " of course, I will." 
 
 Their voices dropped lower, and for a moment 
 only a murmur reached Madison; and then, with 
 another " Good-night, Miss Vail," Thornton 
 started back across the lawn. 
 
 Madison could hear Helena fumbling with the 
 door latch, and by the time she had succeeded in 
 opening the door the retreating figure of Thorn- 
 ton was a safe distance away. Madison called 
 in a whisper: 
 
 " Here, Helena ! Wait a minute ! " 
 
 There was a quick, startled little exclamation 
 from the doorway, and Helena came out hurriedly 
 from the porch. 
 
 "Who's there?" she cried in a low voice. 
 " Oh " as they stepped into view " you, Doc, 
 and the Flopper! What were you doing behind 
 that trellis?" 
 
 " Keeping out of Thornton's road," said Madi- 
 son. "So he's going away, eh? What for?" 
 
 " Business," replied Helena. " Has to go to 
 some meeting in Chicago he's leaving his wife 
 and the private car here. What did you come at 
 this hour for? " 
 
 " Lines for the next act," said Madison; " but 
 the Flopper's got it all, and he'll put you on." 
 He stepped toward Helena and slipped his arm 
 around her waist. " Come on, it's early yet, let's 
 go for a little walk. The Flopper'll excuse us, 
 and I "
 
 176 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 " I thought you said," Helena interrupted, dis- 
 engaging herself quietly, " that we had to play 
 the game to the limit and take no chances." 
 
 " Well, so I did," admitted Madison, and his 
 arm crept around her again; "but I guess we've 
 earned a little holiday and " 
 
 ' Nix on that,' I think was what you said," 
 said Helena with a queer little laugh, drawing 
 away again. " And I really think you were right, 
 Doc we ought to play the game without break- 
 ing the rules, and so good-night " and she 
 turned and ran from him into the cottage. 
 
 Madison stared after her in a sort of nelpless 
 state of chagrin. 
 
 " Mabbe," said the Flopper, " mabbe she's 
 lonely."
 
 H 
 
 XV 
 
 A MIRACLE OVERDONE 
 
 ELENA sat in the Patriarch's room, 
 and her piquant little face was pursed 
 up into a scowl so daintily grim as to 
 be almost ludicrous. The Patriarch, 
 in his armchair, had been scrawling words upon 
 the slate all evening and she had been wiping 
 them off ! He scrawled another now and me- 
 chanically, without looking at it, by way of answer 
 she pressed his arm to appease him. 
 
 She had been restless all day, and she was 
 restless now. What had induced her to treat 
 Madison the way she had the night before? 
 Pique, probably. No ; it wasn't pique. It was just 
 getting back at him and he deserved it. He 
 hadn't seemed to mind it much, though he had 
 only laughed and teased her about it that morn- 
 ing when he had joined the Patriarch and herself 
 in their walk along the beach. 
 
 With her chin in her hands, she began to study 
 the Patriarch through half closed eyes deaf 
 and dumb and blind and somehow it all seemed 
 excruciatingly funny and she wanted to laugh hys- 
 terically. He seemed to sense the fact that she 
 was looking at him, and, with quick, instant in- 
 
 177
 
 178 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 tuition, he smiled and reached out his hand to- 
 ward her. 
 
 Unconsciously, involuntarily, she drew back 
 then, recovering herself the next instant, she took 
 his hand. Now, why had she done that? What 
 was the matter with her? Again she felt that 
 sudden impulse to scream, or laugh, or shout, or 
 make some noise it seemed as though she were 
 penned in, smothered somehow, imprisoned. 
 What was the matter ? Nerves ? She had never 
 known what nerves were in all her life ! Couldn't 
 she play the game and act her part without making 
 a fool of herself? She had played a part all her 
 life, hadn't she? Maybe it was quite a shock 
 to her system to take a place amongst really good 
 and simple folk! 
 
 She laughed a little shortly then rose ab- 
 ruptly from her chair, and began to walk up and 
 down the room. The trouble was that the soft 
 pedal was getting unbearable. That air of awed 
 hush and solemnity, morning, noon and night, 
 without anything to relieve it, was just a trifle too 
 drastic and sudden a change in life for her to ac- 
 cept calmly and swallow in one dose without feel- 
 ing any effects from it! If she could be 
 transported now for an hour, say, to the Roost, 
 or Heligman's and the turkey trot, or the Rivoli, 
 or any old place except Needley, Maine ! 
 
 " Gee! " said Helena to herself. " If I don't 
 break loose and kick the traces over for a minute 
 or two, I'll be clawing the bars of a dippy asylum 
 before I'm through and just listen to the sweet,
 
 A MIRACLE OVERDONE 179 
 
 girlish language I'm using I'd like to bite some- 
 thing!" 
 
 She turned impulsively to the door, stepped out 
 into the hall, and called the Flopper from his 
 room. 
 
 " Flopper, you go in there and stay with the 
 Patriarch for awhile," she ordered curtly. " I'm 
 going down on the beach to yell." 
 
 "Yell?" inquired the Flopper, blinking help- 
 lessly. 
 
 " I'm going outside to yell yell. You know 
 what ' yell ' means, don't you? " she snapped. 
 
 " Swipe me ! " observed the Flopper, gazing at 
 her anxiously. "Skirts is all de same youse 
 never know wot dey'll do next. Wot you wanter 
 yell fer?" 
 
 " You mind your own business and do as you're 
 told ! " said Helena tartly. " Go in there and stay 
 with the Patriarch." 
 
 " Sure," said the Flopper, grinning a little now. 
 " Sure t'ing but youse needn't get on yer ear 
 about it. Cheer up, mabbe de Doc '11 be out to- 
 night, an' if he don't hear youse yellin' himself 
 will I tell him youse are out on de beach t'rowin' 
 a fit?" 
 
 "No," Helena answered sharply; "tell him 
 nothing I'm out." Then, quite as quickly, 
 changing her mind: "Yes; tell him I'm down 
 there or come and get me yourself " and she 
 walked abruptly into her own room. 
 
 " Now wot do youse t'ink of dat? " demanded 
 the Flopper of the universe. He blinked at the
 
 180 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 door she had closed in his face. " Say," he as- 
 serted, with sublime inconsistency, " if Mamie 
 Rodgers was like all de rest of dem, I'd t'row up 
 me dukes before de gong rang." The Flopper 
 went into the Patriarch's room, and took the chair 
 beside the other that Helena had vacated. 
 " Swipe me, if I wouldn't ! " he added fervently, 
 by way of confirmation. 
 
 Helena, in her own room, opened one of her 
 trunks, lifted out the tray, worked somewhat im- 
 patiently down through several layers of yellow, 
 paper-covered literature, that would have made 
 the classics on the Patriarch's bookshelves shrivel 
 up and draw their skirts hurriedly around them in 
 righteous horror could they but have known or 
 been capable of such intensely human character- 
 istics, and finally produced a daintily jewelled lit- 
 tle cigarette case and match box. She slammed 
 the tray back, slammed the cover of the trunk 
 down, snatched up a wrap, flung it over her head 
 and shoulders and left the cottage. 
 
 She ran down to the beach at top speed, as if 
 she couldn't get there fast enough. 
 
 " And now I'm just going to yell and go crazy 
 as much as ever I like!" panted Helena to the 
 rollers. 
 
 i Instead, she sat down with her back to a rock, 
 and opened her cigarette case. She took out a 
 cigarette, extracted a match from the match box, 
 lighted the match and flung both cigarette and 
 match from her. 
 
 " I don't want to be crazy I don't know what
 
 A MIRACLE OVERDONE 181 
 
 I want," said Helena petulantly. Her chin went 
 into her hands, and she stared wide-eyed at the 
 breaking surf. "I wonder what it all means?" 
 she murmured, with a mirthless little laugh. 
 
 Her thoughts began to run riot. What did it 
 all mean? What was this faith? There was, 
 there must be something in it. There was the 
 Holmes boy suppose it was only some nervous 
 disorder well, something had risen superior to 
 whatever it was and had cured him. There was 
 Naida Thornton true, she was ill again her 
 heart, Mr. Thornton had said but she could 
 still walk, a thing she had not been able to do for 
 a long time until she came to Needley. 
 
 Helena laughed again oh, it was a good 
 game! The Doc had made no mistake about 
 that but then, when it came to planting any- 
 thing the Doc rarely did make a mistake. Fancy 
 fifty thousand dollars in one haul! Fifty thou- 
 sand in one haul! The bank had sent her a pass- 
 book with that amount to her credit. And that 
 was only the beginning hardly anybody had 
 come yet, and already there was several hundred 
 dollars more in real money that she had handed 
 over to Madison from the offering box. 
 
 Money ! They'd have more money than they'd 
 know what to do with before they got through 
 there was nothing the matter with the game 
 all there was to do was to play it to a finish. And 
 there wasn't the slightest risk about it every- 
 thing was given voluntarily. Oh, the game was 
 all right but somehow she wasn't happy not
 
 1 82 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 nearly so happy as she had been in New York, 
 even in lean periods when she and the Doc had 
 been pressed for money. But, anyway, then they 
 had been together, and fought, and laughed, and 
 loved, and quarrelled through flush times and 
 bad. 
 
 Maybe that was it! The Doc! Of course, 
 she loved him she had loved him ever since 
 she had known him. There was no secret about 
 that she loved him fiercely, passionately, more 
 than she loved anything else in the world, with 
 all the love she was capable of more than he 
 loved her he seemed to accept her, too often, 
 so casually, so indifferently, so much as a matter 
 of course. He was so confidently and compla- 
 cently sure of her and she was not at all sure 
 of him. She was only sure that he was quite 
 right in being sure she couldn't help loving him 
 if she tried. 
 
 She had hardly seen anything of him since that 
 night in the Roost before he had left for Needley 
 and he hadn't seemed to care much whether 
 she did or not. That talk about playing the game 
 and taking no chances was all bosh there had 
 been plenty of chances where it wouldn't have hurt 
 the game any. Perhaps the little jolt she had 
 given him last night, turning the tables a little, 
 would wake him up a bit. Perhaps, as the Flop- 
 per had said, he would come out to-night, and 
 
 " Helena ! Helena ! " 
 
 Helena sat suddenly upright the noise of the 
 surf muffled the sound of the voice, but that was
 
 A MIRACLE OVERDONE 183 
 
 probably Doc now she could hear footsteps 
 running from the direction of the cottage. De- 
 liberately, Helena leaned back again against the 
 rock, took out a cigarette and with no attempt to 
 shade the flame of the match, rather to use it as 
 a challenging beacon, held it to the cigarette 
 but for the second time she flung both match and 
 cigarette hurriedly away. It wasn't Madison at 
 all it was only the Flopper. 
 
 " Say ! " gasped the Flopper, blowing hard. 
 " Why can't youse answer when yer called? Wot 
 you tryin' ter do light a bonfire ter save yer 
 voice ? Say, youse wanter get a wiggle on 
 beat it quick 1 Dey're after you." 
 
 "What?" cried Helena sharply, jumping to 
 her feet. "After me? Who? What do you 
 mean? " 
 
 " I dunno," said the Flopper with sudden im- 
 perturbability and evidently quite pleased with 
 the agitation he had caused. " He talks like his 
 mouth was full, an' he's got a scare t'rown inter 
 him so's his teeth have got de jiggles." 
 
 Helena caught the Flopper's arm and shook 
 him angrily. 
 
 "What are you talking about what is it?" 
 she demanded fiercely. 
 
 " It's de porter from de private car," said the 
 Flopper, wriggling away from her. " He drove 
 out here. De lady's on de toboggan sick. 
 She's askin' fer youse an' " 
 
 Helena waited for no more. She raced to the 
 cottage and around to the front. A wagon was
 
 1 84 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 standing before the porch; the negro porter on the 
 seat. 
 
 "What is it, Sam?" she called anxiously, as 
 she came up. " Is Mrs. Thornton seriously ill? " 
 
 ' Yas yas'um, miss," Sam answered excit- 
 edly. " I done feel in mah bones she's gwine to 
 die. Miss Harvey she done tole me to get a 
 team an' drive foh you-all like de debbil." 
 
 Without waste of words, Helena clambered in 
 beside him. 
 
 " Then drive," she said shortly. " Drive as 
 fast as you can." 
 
 At first, as they drove along, Helena plied Sam 
 with questions and then lapsed into silence. 
 The man did not know very much only that 
 Mrs. Thornton had been taken suddenly ill, and 
 that the nurse had sent him on the errand that 
 had brought him to the cottage. A turmoil of 
 conflicting emotions filled Helena's mind, obtrud- 
 ing upon her anxiety, for she had grown to care a 
 great deal for Naida Thornton this was a com- 
 plication that Doc Madison must know about 
 Thornton had left that morning and was already 
 far away the newspaper men, or some of them 
 at least, were still in the town and there were 
 so many things else they all came crowding 
 upon her, as she clung to her seat in the jolting 
 wagon. But Doc must know that rose a para- 
 mount consideration. It seemed an age, an eter- 
 nity before they stopped finally at the station. 
 
 She sprang out and turned to Sam. 
 
 " Sam," she directed hurriedly, " you go back
 
 A MIRACLE OVERDONE 185. 
 
 to the Congress Hotel and get Mr. Madison. 
 Mr. Madison is a friend of Mr. Thornton's, you 
 know. Go about it quietly you needn't let any 
 one know what you came for. You can tell Mr. 
 Madison what the trouble is and tell him that 
 I sent you, and that I am here. Do you under- 
 stand?" 
 
 " Yas'um, mum," said Sam impressively. 
 " Just you done leab all that to me, missy." 
 
 Across the track on the siding, the private car 
 was dimly lighted, the window curtains down. 
 Helena crossed the track and mounted the steps. 
 As she reached the platform, Miss Harvey, who 
 had evidently heard her coming, opened the door 
 and drew her quietly inside. 
 
 A glance at the nurse's face brought a sudden 
 chill to Helena's heart. Miss Harvey, capable, 
 controlled, grave, smiled at her a little sadly. 
 
 " I sent for you, Miss Vail," she said in a low 
 tone, " because Mrs. Thornton has been asking 
 for you incessantly ever since the attack came on 
 three-quarters of an hour ago." 
 
 " You mean," said Helena, " that that there 
 is" 
 
 " No hope," the nurse completed. " I am 
 afraid there is none it is her heart. The con- 
 dition has been aggravated by her activity during 
 the last few days since she has been able to walk 
 though I have done everything within my power 
 to keep her quiet." Miss Harvey laid her hand 
 on Helena's arm. ' There is one thing, Miss Vail, 
 I feel that I must say to you, in justice both to
 
 1 86 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 you and to myself, before you see her. Whatever 
 my personal ideas may be of what has taken place 
 here, my professional duty as a nurse demanded 
 that I send for a doctor at once, and I want you 
 to know that is what I did, though I have not been 
 successful in getting one. There is no doctor 
 here, so I telegraphed; but the doctor at Barton's 
 Mills is away." 
 
 ' Yes," said Helena mechanically. 
 
 " I just wanted you to understand," said Miss 
 Harvey. " Will you come and see Mrs. Thorn- 
 ton now? " 
 
 " Does she know," whispered Helena, as efee 
 followed the nurse down the corridor of the car, 
 " does she know that how ill she is? " 
 
 1 Yes," Miss Harvey answered simply. She 
 stopped before a compartment door, opened it 
 softly, and, stepping aside, motioned Helena to 
 enter. 
 
 A little cry rose to Helena's lips that she choked 
 back somehow, and a mist for a moment blinded 
 her eyes then she was kneeling beside the brass 
 bed, and was holding in both her own the hand that 
 was stretched out to her. 
 
 " Helena dear I am so glad you came," 
 said Mrs. Thornton faintly. "I I am not go- 
 ing to get better, and there are some things I 
 want to say to you." 
 
 " Oh, but you are," returned Helena quickly, 
 smiling bravely now. " You mustn't say that." 
 
 Mrs. Thornton shook her head. 
 
 " Dear," she said, " I know. And I know that
 
 A MIRACLE OVERDONE 187 
 
 what I have to say I must say quickly." Her 
 voice seemed to grow suddenly stronger with a 
 great earnestness. " Listen, dear. This must 
 not make any difference to this wonderful work 
 that has just begun here. I was cured of my 
 hip disease perfectly cured no one can deny 
 that this is my own fault, I have overdone it 
 I would not listen to reason to do what I 
 have done in the last few days, when for a year 
 and a half I had never moved a step, was more 
 than my heart could stand. I should have been 
 more quiet but I was so glad, so happy and 
 I wanted to tell everybody I wanted all the 
 world to know, so that others could find the joy 
 that I had found." 
 
 She paused and Helena sought for words 
 that, somehow, would not come. 
 
 The nurse was bending over the bed on the 
 other side, and Mrs. Thornton turned her head 
 toward Miss Harvey now. She smiled gently, 
 as though to rob her words of any possible hurt. 
 
 " Nurse, I want to be alone with Miss Vail 
 for just a moment." 
 
 Miss Harvey, doubtful, hesitated. 
 
 " Only for a moment," pleaded Mrs. Thornton. 
 ' You can stay just outside the door." 
 
 Reluctantly, Miss Harvey complied, and left 
 the room. 
 
 Mrs. Thornton pressed Helena's hand tightly. 
 
 " Listen, dear this must not make any dif- 
 ference. It it is the one thing that will make 
 me happy now to know that. I I have writ-
 
 i8& THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 ten a little note to Robert about it, to be given to 
 him. Oh, if I could only have lived to help 
 I should have tried so hard to be worthy to have 
 a part in it. Not like you, dear, with your sweet- 
 ness and nobleness, for God seems to have singled 
 you out for this but just to have had a little 
 part. How wonderful it would have been, bring- 
 ing peace and health and gladness where only sor- 
 row and misery was before, and and " 
 
 Mrs. Thornton's eyes closed, and she lay for 
 a moment quiet. 
 
 A blackness seemed to settle upon Helena 
 and how cold it was! She shivered. Her dark 
 eyes, wide, tearless now, stared, startled, dazed, 
 at the white face on the pillow crowned with its 
 mass of golden hair. Her sweetness ! Her no- 
 bleness ! Helena's lips half parted and her breath 
 came in quick, fierce, little gasps it seemed as 
 though she had been struck a blow that she could 
 not quite understand because somehow it had 
 numbed her senses only there was a hurt that 
 curiously, strangely seemed to mock as it stabbed 
 with pain. 
 
 " There is Robert " Mrs. Thornton spoke 
 again " I am sure he will do as I have asked 
 him to do about this, but you can have a great 
 deal of influence with him. It it perhaps may 
 seem a strange thing to say, but I pray that you 
 two may be brought very close to each other. 
 Robert needs a good, true woman so much in his 
 life and I we we my illness we 
 have never had a home in its truest sense. Yes,
 
 A MIRACLE OVERDONE 189 
 
 it is strange for me perhaps to talk like this but 
 it is in my heart. I would like to think of you 
 both engaged in this wonderful work together." 
 
 Again, through exhaustion, Mrs. Thornton 
 stopped and Helena, from gazing at the other's 
 pallid countenance in a sort of involuntary, fright- 
 ened fascination, dropped her head suddenly upon 
 the bed-spread and hid her face. 
 
 Mrs. Thornton's hand found Helena's head and 
 rested upon it. 
 
 " I would like to see Robert happy," she mur- 
 mured, after a little silence. " Riches do not 
 make happiness they are so sad and empty a 
 thing when the heart is empty. I know he would 
 be happy with you he has spoken so much of 
 you lately perhaps perhaps " 
 
 Mrs. Thornton's voice was very faint the 
 words reached Helena plainly enough as words, 
 but they seemed to reach her consciousness in an 
 unreal, unnatural, blunted way, coma-like preg- 
 nant of significance, yet with the significance itself 
 elusive, evading her. 
 
 " A good woman," whispered Mrs. Thornton, 
 " I have tried to be a good woman but but 
 my life, our wealth, our position has made it so 
 artificial. You have never known these things, 
 dear and so you are just as God made you 
 a good woman, so pure, so wonderful in your 
 freshness and your innocence. Robert's life has 
 been so barren so barren. I would like to 
 know that that it will not always be so. Oh, 
 if it could only be that you and he should carry on
 
 1 90 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 this great, glad work together and love should 
 come into his life and yours and sunshine 
 promise me, dear, that " 
 
 The voice died away. Helena, with head still 
 buried, waited for Mrs. Thornton to speak again. 
 It seemed she waited for a great length of time 
 and yet there was no such thing as time. It 
 seemed as though she were transported to a place 
 of great and intense blackness where it was mis- 
 erably cold and chill, and she stood alone and lost, 
 and strove to find her way and there was no 
 way only blackness everywhere, immeasurable. 
 She lifted her head suddenly, desperately, to shake 
 the unreality from her and her eyes fell upon 
 the gentle face, peaceful, smiling, calm, and so 
 still and a startled, frightened cry rang from 
 her lips. 
 
 There was the quick, hurried rush of some one 
 coming into the room, and the nurse brushed by 
 her and bent instantly over the bed after that, 
 quite soon after that it seemed, and yet it might 
 have been quite a little while, she found herself 
 outside in the corridor and the nurse was speaking 
 to her. 
 
 " Sam is still out there," said Miss Harvey 
 gently. " I told him to keep the team. You can- 
 not help me, and I want you to go home, dear. 
 And will you ask Sam to go for Mr. Madison at 
 the hotel on the way back I do not know who 
 else I can call upon for advice." 
 
 " I've sent for him already," said Helena 
 numbly.
 
 A MIRACLE OVERDONE 191 
 
 "Have you, dear?" Miss Harvey said. 
 " That was very thoughtful of you I'm sure 
 he'll be here presently then. And now, dear, it 
 is much better that you should go." 
 
 There were no tears in Helena's eyes as she 
 stepped down from the car vestibule to the tracks 
 - only a drawn misery in her face. That was 
 Doc over there, pacing up and down on the plat- 
 form in the darkness wasn't it weird the way 
 his cigar glowed bright and then went out and 
 then glowed bright again like a gigantic firefly ! 
 
 She was across the tracks before he saw her, 
 then, hurrying forward, he helped her to the plat- 
 form. 
 
 "Well?" he asked quickly. 
 
 Helena did not answer. 
 
 Madison took the cigar from his lips, leaned 
 forward, and peered into Helena's face then 
 drew back with a low whistle. 
 
 "Dead? "he said. 
 
 Helena nodded. 
 
 " Miss Harvey wants to see you," she said. 
 
 " Say," said Madison slowly, " first crack out 
 of the box this looks bad, don't it? If this gets 
 around here without a muffler on it, it might make 
 the railroad companies hang fire with those cir- 
 culars for excursion rates to Needley what?" 
 
 "I I think I hate you ! " Helena cried out 
 suddenly, passionately. " She's she's dead 
 and that's all you think about! " 
 
 Madison stared at Helena for a moment calmly. 
 
 " Now, look here, Helena," said he quietly,
 
 I 9 2 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 44 don't get excited. Of course I'm sorry I'm 
 not a brute and I've got feelings but I can't 
 afford to lose my head. Something's got to be 
 done, and done quick. We don't want this head- 
 lined in every paper in the United States to-mor- 
 row morning Thornton wouldn't want it either. 
 You say Miss Harvey wants to see me? Well, 
 that'll help some she'll probably do as she's 
 told, and " 
 
 Madison paused abruptly, gazed abstractedly at 
 the private car across the tracks on the siding, and 
 pulled at his cigar. 
 
 Helena watched him in silence a little bit- 
 terly. That quick, clever, cunning brain of his 
 was at work again scheming scheming al- 
 ways scheming and Naida Thornton was dead. 
 
 " I'll tell you," said Madison, speaking again 
 as abruptly as he had stopped. " It's simple 
 enough. There's a westbound train due in an 
 hour or so we'll couple the private car onto 
 that and send it right along to Chicago. What 
 the authorities don't know won't hurt them. 
 There's no reason for anybody except Thornton 
 to know what's happened till she gets there I'll 
 wire him. The main thing is that the car won't 
 be here in the morning, and that'll take a little of 
 the intimate touch of Needley off. It might well 
 have happened on her way home journey too 
 much for her left too soon see? Thorn- 
 ton'll see it in the right light because he's got 
 fifty thousand dollars worth of faith in what's go- 
 ing on here get that? He won't want to harm
 
 A MIRACLE OVERDONE 193 
 
 the l cause.' There'll be some publicity of course, 
 we can't help that but it won't hurt much > 
 and Thornton can gag a whole lot of it he'd 
 want to anyway for his own sake. Now then,, 
 kid, there's Sam over there you pile into the 
 wagon and go home, while I get busy and don't 
 you say a word about this, even to the Flopper.'* 
 And so Helena drove back to the Patriarch's 
 cottage that night, a little silent figure in the bacld 
 seat of the wagon and her hands were locked 
 tightly together in her lap and to her, as she 
 drove over the peaceful, moonlit road, and under 
 the still, arched branches of the trees in the wood 
 that hid the starlight, came again and again the 
 words of one who had gone, who perhaps 
 better now*-^" you are as God made you."
 
 1 
 
 XVI 
 
 A FLY IN THE OINTMENT 
 
 days passed. And with the days, 
 morning, noon and night, they came by 
 almost every train, the sick and suffer- 
 ing, the lame, the paralytics and the 
 maimed a steady influx by twos and threes and 
 fours from north over the Canadian boundary 
 line, from the far west, and from the southern- 
 most tip of the Florida coast. No longer on the 
 company's schedule was Needley a flag station 
 it was a regular stop, and its passenger traffic re- 
 turns were benign and pleasing things in the au- 
 ditor's office. And it was an accustomed sight 
 now, many times a day what had once been a 
 strange, rare spectacle that slow procession 
 wending its way from the station to the town, some 
 carried, some limping upon crutches, all snatching 
 at hope of life and health and happiness again. 
 Needley, perforce, had become a vast boarding 
 house, as it were there were few homes indeed 
 that did not harbor their quota of those who 
 sought the " cure." 
 
 But there were others too who came who 
 were not sick who had not faith who came 
 to laugh and peer and peek. Pleasure yachts 
 dropped their anchors in the cove around the head- 
 
 194
 
 A FLY IN THE OINTMENT 195 
 
 land from the Patriarch's cottage and their 
 dingeys brought women decked out de rigeur in 
 middy blouses and sailor collars, and nattily at- 
 tired gentlemen whose only claim to seamanship 
 was the clothes, or rather, the costumes that they 
 wore. 
 
 They came laughing, supercilious, tolerant, con- 
 temptuous, pitying the inanity of those they held 
 less strongly-minded than themselves who should 
 be taken in by so apparent, glaring and monstrous 
 a fake. They came because it was the rage, the 
 thing to do, quite the thing to do, quite a necessary 
 part of the summer's itinerary. But that they, 
 should they have been sick, would ever have 
 dreamed of coming there was too perfectly ridic- 
 ulous an idea for words. How strange a thing is 
 the human animal ! 
 
 They came in their rather cruel, merciless gaiety 
 and they left sobered and impressed; the ladies 
 holding their embroidered parasols at a less jaunty 
 angle ; the men with lightened pockets, their names 
 enrolled in the contribution book in that quiet, 
 simple room, whose door was open, whose cash- 
 box was unguarded, where none asked them to 
 either enter or withdraw. They came and found 
 no air of charlatanism such as they had looked 
 for only a peaceful, unostentatious, patient air 
 of sincerity that left them remorseful and abashed. 
 They came and went, a source of revenue not 
 counted on or thought of before by Madison; but 
 a source that swelled the coffers, brimming fuller 
 day by day, to overflowing.
 
 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 In three weeks from the night of Mrs. Thorn- 
 ton's death, which had had at least no visible ef- 
 fect on Needley, Needley was metamorphosed 
 with a spontaneity, so to speak, that astounded 
 even Madison himself into something that ap- 
 proximated very closely in reality the word-picture 
 he had drawn of it that night in the Roost. Madi- 
 son looked upon his work and saw that it was 
 pleasing beyond his dreams. Money was pouring 
 in no single breath of suspicion came to dis- 
 quiet him. Even the cures were working satis- 
 factorily even Pale Face Harry, who had be- 
 come great friends with the farmer at whose house 
 he boarded, and who now spent most of his time 
 in the fields, was showing an improvement Pale 
 Face Harry coughed less. The Flopper was as 
 happy as a lark and Mamie Rodgers blushed 
 now at mention of the name of Coogan. Helena, 
 demure, adored by all who saw her, went daily 
 about her housework in the cottage, and waited 
 upon the Patriarch with gentle tenderness; while 
 the Patriarch, docile, full of supreme trust and 
 confidence in every one, radiant in Helena's com- 
 panionship, was as putty in their hands. And so 
 'Madison looked upon his work and saw no flaw 
 but with the days he grew ill at ease. 
 
 " It's too easy," he told himself. " I guess 
 that's it it's too easy. The whole show runs 
 itself. Why, there's nothing to do but count the 
 cash!" 
 
 And yet in his heart he knew that wasn't it 
 it was Helena. Helena was beginning to trouble
 
 A FLY IN THE OINTMENT 193 
 
 him a little. She was playing the game all right 
 
 playing it to the limit and making a hit at 
 every performance. Her name was on every 
 tongue, and men and women alike spoke of her 
 sweetness, her goodness, her loveliness. Well, 
 that was all right, Helena was a star no matter 
 where you put her but something was the mat- 
 ter. Helena wasn't the Helena of a month ago 
 back in little old New York. He hadn't managed 
 to get a dozen words with her since that night on 
 the station platform, without taking chances and 
 gaining admission to the cottage through the Flop- 
 per's window after dark- and then she had held 
 him at arm's length. 
 
 " The matter with me ? " she had said. " There 
 isn't anything the matter with me is there ? 
 I'm I'm playing the game." 
 
 It certainly couldn't be grief over Mrs. Thorn- 
 ton's death she had begun to act that way be- 
 fore Mrs. Thornton died that night when she 
 came home with Thornton, and he and the Flop- 
 per were behind the trellis. Thornton ! Had 
 Thornton anything to do with it, after all? No 
 
 Madison had laughed at it then, and he had 
 much more reason to laugh at it now. Thornton 
 was still in Chicago, and hadn't been back to 
 Needley. 
 
 For three weeks this sort of thing occupied at 
 considerably larger share of Madison's thoughts 
 than he was wont to allow even the most vexing 
 problems to disturb his usually imperturbable and 
 complacent self and then one afternoon, he?
 
 198 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 smiled a little grimly, and, leaving the hotel, 
 started along the road toward the Patriarch's cot- 
 tage. 
 
 " What Helena needs is a jolt! " said Madi- 
 son to himself. u I guess her trouble is one of 
 those everlasting feminine kinks that all women 
 since Adam's wife have patted themselves on the 
 back over, because they think it's a dark veil of 
 mystery that is beyond the acumen of brute man 
 to understand. That's what the novelists write 
 pages about wade right in up to the armpits in 
 it feminine psychology great ! And the 
 women smile commiseratingly at the novelist 
 the idea of a man even pretending to understand 
 them kind of a blooming merry-go-round and 
 everybody happy ! Feminine psychology ! I 
 guess a little masculine kick-up is about the right 
 dope ! What the deuce have I been standing for 
 it for? I don't have to I don't have to go 
 around making sheep's-eyes at her what? She 
 wants grabbing up and being rushed right off her 
 feet a la Roost, and hello, Mr. Marvin, how 
 are you to-day! " he had halted beside a middle- 
 aged man who was sitting on the grass at the 
 roadside. 
 
 " Better, Mr. Madison, better," returned the 
 man, heartily. " Really very much better." 
 
 " Fine I " said Madison. 
 
 " We all saw the Patriarch to-day God bless 
 him ! " said Marvin. " We've been waiting out 
 there two days, you know that woman with the 
 bad back got up off her stretcher."
 
 A FLY IN THE OINTMENT 199 
 
 "Splendid!" exclaimed Madison enthusiastic- 
 ally. " And the glorious thing about it is that 
 there's no reason why everybody can't be cured if 
 they'll only come here in the right spirit." 
 
 " That's so ! " agreed Marvin. " None are so 
 blind as those who won't see they're in utter 
 blackness compared with the physical blindness of 
 that grand and marvelous man. I'm going home 
 myself in another week better than ever I was 
 in my life. It was stomach with me, you know 
 doctors said there wasn't any chance except to 
 operate, and that an operation was too slim a 
 chance to be worth risking it." He got up and 
 laughed, carefree, joyous. " God-given place 
 down here, isn't it? Clean that's it. Clean 
 air, clean-souled people, clean everything you see 
 or do or hear. Say, it kind of opens your eyes to 
 real living, doesn't it it's the luxuries and the 
 worries and the pace and the damn-fooleries that 
 kill. Well, I'm going along back now to get some 
 of Mrs. Perkins' cream clean, rich cream 
 and home-made bread and butter imagine me 
 with an appetite and able to eat! " 
 
 He laughed again and Madison joined him 
 in the laugh, slapping him a cordial good-by on 
 the shoulder. 
 
 Madison started on once more but now his 
 progress was slow, frequently interrupted, for he 
 stopped a score of times to chat and exchange a 
 few words with those whom he passed on the 
 road. There were cheery faces everywhere 
 even those of the sufferers who straggled out along
 
 200 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 the road coming back from the Patriarch's cottage. 
 It was a cheery afternoon, warm and balmy and 
 bright everything was cheery. The farmers, 
 their vocations for the moment changed, waved 
 their whips at him and shouted friendly pleasant- 
 ries as they drove by with those who were unable 
 to make the trip from the Patriarch's unaided. 
 
 Madison began to experience a strange, exhila- 
 rating sense of uplift upon him, a sort of rather 
 commendatory and gratified feeling with himself. 
 Marvin had hit it pretty nearly right with his 
 " clean-wholesomeness " idea it kind of made 
 one feel good to be a part of it. Madison, for the 
 time being, relegated Helena and his immediate 
 mission to a secondary place in his thoughts. 
 
 Young girls, young men, middle-aged men, el- 
 derly women, all ages of both sexes he passed 
 as he went along; some alone, some in couples, 
 some in little groups, some on crutches, some in 
 wheel-chairs, some walking without extraneous aid 
 he had turned into the woods now, and he could 
 see them strewn out all along the wagon track 
 under the cool, interlacing branches overhead. 
 
 Now he stepped aside to let a wagon pass him, 
 and answered the farmer's call and the smile of 
 the occupants in kind; now some one stopped to 
 tell him again the story of the afternoon there 
 had been cures that day and the Patriarch had 
 come amongst them. Some laughed, some sang a 
 little, softly, to themselves all smiled all 
 spoke in glad, hopeful words, clean words there 
 seemed no base thought in any mind, only that
 
 A FLY IN THE OINTMENT 201 
 
 cleanness, that wholesomeness that had so ap- 
 pealed to Marvin that somehow Madison 
 found he was taking a delight in responding to, 
 and, because it afforded him whimsical pleasure, 
 chose to pretend that he was quite a genuine ex- 
 ponent of it himself. 
 
 He reached the end of the wagon track, and 
 paused involuntarily on the edge of the Patriarch's 
 lawn as he came out from the trees. Like low, 
 lulling music came the distant, mellowed noise of 
 waters, the breaking surf. And the cottage was a 
 bower of green now, clothed in ivy and vine 
 upon the trellises the early roses were budding 
 fragrance of growing things blended with the salt, 
 invigorating breeze from the ocean. And upon 
 the lawn, flanked with its sturdy maples, all in 
 leaf, that toned the sunshine in soft-falling shad- 
 ows, stood, or sat, or reclined on cots, the suppli- 
 cants who still tarried though the Patriarch had 
 gone. And now one came reverently out of the 
 cottage door from that room that was never 
 closed ; now another went in and still another. 
 
 Madison smiled suddenly, broadly, with im- 
 mense satisfaction and contentment and then 
 his eyes fixed quite as suddenly on the single-seated 
 buggy that was coming toward him on the drive- 
 way across the lawn. That was Mamie Rodgers 
 driving and that was Helena beside her. 
 
 Madison recalled instantly the object of his 
 visit and instantly he whistled a rather surprised 
 little whistle under his breath. How alluringly 
 Helena's brown hair coiled in wavy wealth upon
 
 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 her liead; there wasn't any need of rouge for 
 color >n the oval face; the dark eyes were soft and 
 deep and glorious; and she sat there in a little 
 white musiin frock as dainty as a medallion from 
 a master's bnish. 
 
 " Say," said Madison to himself, " say, I never 
 quite got it before. Say, she's she's lovely 
 and that's my Helena. It's no wonder Thornton 
 stared at her that day we touched him for the 
 fifty, and " suddenly " damn Thornton ! " 
 
 But the buggy was beside him now, and he 
 lifted his hat as Mamie Rodgers pulled up the 
 horse. 
 
 " Good afternoon, Miss Rodgers," he said. 
 " Good afternoon, Miss Vail how is the Patri- 
 arch to-day? " 
 
 " He is very well, thank you," Helena answered 
 and being custodian of the whip brushed a fly 
 off the horse's flank. 
 
 " I was just coming out to pay you a little visit," 
 remarked Madison, trying to catch her eye. 
 
 " Oh, I'm jo sorry I " said Helena sweetly, still 
 busy with the fly. " Mamie Is going to take me 
 for a drive and afterwards we are going to her 
 house for tea." 
 
 " Oh! " said Madison, a little blankly. 
 
 Helena smiled at him, nodded, and touched 
 the horse with the whip and then she leaned 
 suddenly out toward him, as the buggy started for- 
 ward. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Madison," she called, " I forgot to 
 tell you ! I had a letter from Mr. Thornton to- 
 day and he's coming back to-morrow."
 
 
 - XVII - 
 
 IN WHICH HELENA TAKES A RIDE 
 
 THE wind kissed Helena's face, bring- 
 ing dainty color to her cheeks, tossing 
 truant wisps of hair this way and that, 
 as the car swept onward. But she sat 
 strangely silent now beside Thornton at the steer- 
 ing wheel. 
 
 It seemed to her that she was living, not her 
 own life, not life as she had known and looked 
 upon it in the years before, but living, as it were, 
 in a strange, suspended state that was neither real 
 nor unreal, as in a dream that led her, now through 
 cool, deep forests, beside clear, sparkling streams 
 where all was a great peace and the soul was at 
 rest, serene, untroubled, now into desolate places 
 where misery had its birth and shame was, where 
 there was fear, and the mind stood staggered and 
 appalled and lost and knew not how to guide her 
 that she might flee from it all. 
 
 At moments most unexpected, as now when mo- 
 toring with Thornton in the car that he had 
 brought back with him on his return to Needley, 
 when laughing at the Flopper's determined pur- 
 suit of Mamie Rodgers, when engaged in the 
 homely, practical details of housekeeping about 
 the cottage, there came flashing suddenly upon her 
 
 203
 
 204 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 the picture of Mrs. Thornton lying on the brass 
 bed in the car compartment that night, every line 
 of the pale, gentle face as vivid, as actual as 
 though it were once more before her in reality, and 
 m her ears rang again, stabbing her with their un- 
 meant condemnation, those words of sweetness, 
 love and purity that held her up to gaze upon her- 
 self in ghastly, terrifying mockery. 
 
 It stupified her, bewildered her, frightened her. 
 She seemed, for days and weeks now, to be drift- 
 ing with a current that, eddying, swirling, swept 
 her this way and that. How wonderful it was, this 
 life she was now leading compared with the old 
 life so full of the better things, the better emo- 
 tions, the better thoughts that she had never known 
 before ! How monstrous in its irony that she was 
 leading it to steal, that she might play her part in 
 a criminal scheme for a criminal end! And yet, 
 somehow, it did not all seem shalh, this part she 
 played and that very thought, too, frightened 
 her. Why was it now that Madison's oft-at- 
 tempted, and as oft-repulsed, kiss upon her lips 
 was something from which she shrank and battled 
 back, no longer from a sense of pique or to bring 
 him to his knees, but because something new within 
 her, intangible, that she did not understand, rose 
 up against it ! Why did she do this she, who 
 had known the depths, who had known no other 
 guide or mentor than the turbulent, passionate love 
 she had yielded him and in her abandonment had 
 once found contentment! Was her love for him 
 gone? Or, if it was not that what was it?
 
 HELENA TAKES A RIDE 205 
 
 What was it? A week, another, two more, a 
 month had slipped away since Thornton had re- 
 turned, and there had been so much of genuineness 
 crowded into this sham part of hers that it seemed 
 at times the part itself was genuine. She had 
 come to love that little room of hers, love it for 
 its dear simplicity, the white muslin curtains, the 
 rag mat, the patch-quilt on the bed; those daily 
 duties of a woman, that she had never done before, 
 that she had at first looked at askance, brought now 
 a sense of keen, housewifely pride; the gentle pa- 
 tience of the Patriarch, his love for her, his simple 
 trust in her had found a quick and instant response 
 in her own heart, and daily her affection for him 
 had grown; and there was Thornton this man 
 beside her, whose companionship somehow she 
 seemed to crave for, who, in his grave, quiet man- 
 liness, seemed a sort of inspiration to her, who 
 seemed in a curious way to appease a new hunger 
 that had come to her for association, for contact 
 with better thoughts and better ideals. 
 
 What was it? Environment? Yes; there 
 must be something in that. It was having its ef- 
 fect even on Pale Face Harry and the Flopper. 
 What was it that Harry, a surprisingly lusty farm- 
 hand now, had said to her a week or so ago: 
 " Say, Helena, do you ever feel that while you was 
 trying to kid the crowd about this living on the 
 square, you was kind of getting kidded yourself? 
 I dunno ! I ain't coughed for a month honest. 
 But it ain't only that Say I dunno ! Do you 
 ever feel that way? "
 
 206 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 Yes; there must be something in environment. 
 The old life had never brought her thoughts such 
 as these, thoughts that had been with her now al- 
 most since the first day she had come to Needley 
 this disquiet, this self-questioning, these sudden, 
 floods of condemnatory confusion; and, mingling 
 with them, a startled thrill, a strange, half-glad, 
 half-premonitory awakening, a vague pronounce- 
 ment that innately it might be true that she was 
 not what she really was but what all those 
 around her held her to be what Mrs. Thornton 
 had said she was and 
 
 Her fingers closed with a quick, fierce pressure 
 on the arm-rest of her seat and she shifted her 
 position with a sudden, involuntary movement. 
 
 Thornton, a road-map tacked on a piece of 
 board and propped up at his feet, raised his head, 
 and, self-occupied himself, had apparently not no- 
 ticed her silence, for he spoke irrelevantly. 
 
 " I hope you won't mind if the road is a bit 
 rougher than usual for a few miles," he said; " but 
 you know we decided we didn't like the looks of 
 the weather at tea-time, and according to the map, 
 which labels it ' rough but passable,' this is a short 
 cut that will lop off about ten miles and take us 
 back to Needley through Barton's Mills." 
 
 " Of course, I don't mind," Helena answered. 
 " How far are we from Needley? " 
 
 " About thirty-five miles or so," Thornton re- 
 plied. " Say, an hour and a half with any kind of 
 going at all. We ought to be back by nine." 
 
 Helena nodded brightly and leaned back in her
 
 HELENA TAKES A RIDE 207 
 
 seat. Rather than objecting to the short cut that 
 Thornton had begun to negotiate, the road, now 
 that she gave her attention to it, she found to be 
 quite the prettiest bit she had seen in the whole 
 afternoon's run, where, in the rough, sparsely set- 
 tled north country, all was both pretty and a de- 
 light miles and miles without the sign of even a 
 farmhouse, just the great Maine forests, so ma- 
 jestic and grand in their solitude, bordering the 
 road that undulated with the country, now to a rise 
 with its magnificent sweep of scenery, now to the 
 cool, fresh valleys full of the sweet pine-scent of 
 the woods. They had explored much of it to- 
 gether in the little ' run-about,' nearly every daj 
 a short spin somewhere; to-day a little more am- 
 bitious run the whole afternoon, and tea, a pic- 
 nic tea, an hour or more back, in a charming glade 
 beside a little brook. 
 
 " Oh, this is perfectly lovely! " she exclaimed r 
 and then, with a breathless laugh, as a bump 
 lifted her out of her seat: " It is rough isn't 
 it?" 
 
 Thornton laughed and slowed down. 
 
 " I don't fancy it's used much, except in the win- 
 ter for logging. But if the map says we can get 
 through, I guess we're all right there's about 
 an eight mile stretch of it." 
 
 It was growing dusk, and the shadows, fanciful 
 and picturesque, were deepening around them. 
 Now it showed a solid mass of green ahead, and, 
 like a sylvan path, the road, converging in the dis- 
 tance, lost itself in a wall of foliage; now it
 
 208 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 swerved rapidly, this way and that, in short curves, 
 as though, like one lost, it sought its way. 
 
 A half hour passed. Thornton stopped the car, 
 got down and lighted his lamps, then started on 
 again. The going had seemed to be growing 
 steadily worse the road, as Thornton had said, 
 was little more indeed than a logging trail through 
 the heart of the woods; and now, deeper in, with 
 increasing frequency, the tires slipped and skidded 
 on damp, moist earth that at times approached 
 very nearly to being oozy mud. 
 
 Silence for a long while had held between them. 
 It was taking Thornton all his time now to guide 
 the car, that, negotiating fallen branches strewn 
 across the way, bad holes and ruts, was crawling 
 at a snail's pace. 
 
 ' Rough but passable ' ! " he laughed once, 
 clambering back to his seat after clearing away 
 a dead tree-trunk from in front of them. " But 
 there's no use trying to go back, as we must be 
 halfway through, and it can't be any worse ahead 
 than it's been behind. I'd like to tell the fellow 
 that made this map something! " 
 
 And then upon Helena, just why she could not 
 tell, began to steal an uneasiness that frightened 
 her a little. It had grown suddenly, intensely 
 dark quicker than the slow, creeping change of 
 dusk blending softly into night. Sort of eerie, it 
 seemed and a wind springing up and rustling 
 through the branches made strange noises all 
 about. They seemed to be shut in by a wall of 
 blackness on every hand, except ahead where, like
 
 HELENA TAKES A RIDE 209 
 
 great streaming eyes of fire, the powerful lamps 
 shot out their rays making weird color effects in the 
 forest huge tree-trunks loomed a dead drab, 
 like mute sentinels, grim and ominous, that barred 
 their way ; now, in the full glare, the foliage took 
 on the softest fairy shade of green; now, tapering 
 off, heavier in color, it merged into impenetrable 
 black; and, with the jouncing of the car, the light 
 rays jiggling up and down gave an unnatural 
 semblance as of moving, animate things before 
 them, a myriad of them, ever retreating, but ever 
 marshalling their forces again as though threaten- 
 ing attack, as though to oppose the car's advance. 
 
 What was there to be afraid of? She tried to 
 laugh at herself it was perfectly ridiculous. A 
 little bit of rough road the forest that she loved 
 around her even if it was very dark. They 
 would come out eventually somewhere on the 
 trunk-road to Barton's Mills that was all there 
 was to it. Meanwhile, it was quite an experience, 
 and she had every confidence in Thornton. She 
 glanced at him now. It was too dark to get more 
 than an indistinct outline of the clean-cut profile, 
 but there was something inspiriting in the alert, 
 self-possessed, competent poise of his body as he 
 croched well forward over the wheel, his eyes 
 never lifting from the road ahead. 
 
 They appeared to be going a little faster now, 
 too undoubtedly the road was getting better. 
 What was there to be afraid of? It didn't make 
 it any more pleasant for Thornton, who was prob- 
 ably reproaching himself rather bitterly for having.
 
 210 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 been tempted by the " short cut," to have her sit 
 and mope beside him ! 
 
 She began to hum an air softly to herself and 
 then laughingly sang a bar or two aloud. 
 
 Thornton shot a quick, appreciative glance at 
 her and nodded, joining in the laugh. 
 
 "By Jove!" he said approvingly. "That 
 sounds good to me. I was afraid this beastly 
 stretch, bumping and crawling along in the "dark, 
 was making you miserable." 
 
 " Miserable! " exclaimed Helena. " Why, the 
 idea! What is there to be miserable about? 
 We'll get through after a while and the road's 
 better now than it was anyhow, isn't it?" 
 
 "Better?" 
 
 " You're running faster." 
 
 "Oh er yes, of course," said Thornton 
 -quickly. " I wasn't thinking of what I said. 
 I" 
 
 He stopped suddenly, as Helena lifted her hand 
 to her face. 
 
 " Why, it's beginning to rain," she said. 
 
 'Yes; I'm afraid so," he admitted. "I was 
 hoping we would get out of here before it came." 
 
 "Oh!" said Helena. 
 
 " And the worst of it is," he added hurriedly, 
 " there's no top to the car, and you've no wraps." 
 
 " Perhaps it won't be anything more than a 
 shower," said Helena hopefully. 
 
 u Perhaps not," he agreed. " Anyway " he 
 stopped the car, and took oft his coat " put this 
 on."
 
 HELENA TAKES A RIDE 211 
 
 "No please," protested Helena. "You'll 
 need it yourself." 
 
 " Not at all," said Thornton cheerily. " And 
 that light dress of yours would be soaked through 
 in no time." 
 
 He held the coat for her, and she slipped it on 
 and his hand around her shoulder and neck, as 
 he turned the collar up and buttoned it gently 
 about her, seemed to linger as it touched her 
 throat, and yet linger with the most curious diffi- 
 dence a sort of reverence. Helena suddenly 
 wanted to laugh and, quick in her intuition, as 
 suddenly wanted to cry. It wasn't much only 
 a little touch. It didn't mean love, or passion, or 
 feeling only that, unconsciously in his respect, 
 he held her up to gaze upon herself again in that 
 mocking mirror where all was sham. 
 
 They started on Thornton silent once more, 
 busy with the car; Helena, her mind in riot, with 
 no wish for words. 
 
 The rain came steadily in a drizzle. She could 
 feel her dress growing damp around her knees 
 and she shivered a little. How strangely wonder- 
 ful the rain-beads looked on their background of 
 green leaves where the lamps played upon them 
 they seemed to catch and hold and reflect back the 
 light in a quick, passing procession of clear, spark- 
 ling crystals. But it was raining more heavily 
 now, wasn't it? The drops were no longer cling- 
 ing to the leaves, they were spattering dull and 
 lustrelessly to the ground. And Thornton seemed 
 suddenly to be in trouble he was bending down
 
 212 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 working at something. How jerkily the car was 
 moving ! And now it stopped. 
 
 Thornton swung out of his seat to the ground. 
 
 "It's all right!" he called out reassuringly. 
 " I'll have it fixed in a minute." 
 
 It was muddy enough now, and the ruts, hold- 
 ing the rain, were regular wheel-traps. Apart 
 from any other trouble, Thornton did not like the 
 prospect and, away from Helena now, his face 
 was serious. He cranked the engine no result. 
 He tried it again with equal futility then, going 
 to the tool-box, he took out his electric flashlight, 
 and, lifting the engine hood, began to peer into the 
 machinery. Everything seemed all right. He 
 tried the crank again the engine, like some cold, 
 dead thing, refused to respond. 
 
 " What's the matter? " Helena asked him from 
 the car. 
 
 " I don't know," Thornton answered lightly. 
 " I haven't found out yet but don't you worry, 
 it's nothing serious. I'll have it in a jiffy." 
 
 Helena's knowledge of motor cars and engine 
 trouble was not extensive she was conversant 
 only with the " fool's mate " of motoring. 
 
 " Maybe there's no gasoline," she suggested 
 helpfully. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " returned Thornton, with a laugh. 
 " I told Babson to see that the tank was full before 
 he brought the car around he wouldn't forget 
 a thing like that." 
 
 Thornton, nevertheless, tested the gasoline 
 tank.
 
 HELENA TAKES A RIDE 213 
 
 " Well? " inquired Helena, breaking the silence 
 that followed. 
 
 " There is no gasoline," said Thornton heav- 
 ily. 
 
 Neither spoke for a moment. There was no 
 sound but the steady drip from the leaves. Then 
 Helena forced a laugh. 
 
 " Isn't it ridiculous ! " she said. " That is what 
 one Is always making fun of others for. I I 
 don't think it's going to stop raining do you? 
 And we're miles and miles from anywhere. What 
 do people do when they're caught like this ? " 
 
 Thornton did not answer at once. Bitterly re- 
 proachful with himself, he stood there coatless in 
 the rain. If it had been a breakdown, an accident 
 that was unavoidable, a little of the sting might 
 have gone out of the situation but gasoline! 
 This from rank, blatant, glaring, inexcusable 
 idiocy. Not on his part perhaps but that did 
 not lessen his responsibility. They were miles, as 
 she had said, from anywhere four miles at least 
 in either direction from the main road, and as 
 many more probably after that from any farm- 
 house he remembered that for half an hour 
 before they had turned into the " short cut " 
 they had seen no sign of habitation and 
 what lay in the other direction, ahead, would 
 in all probability be the same they were up in 
 the timber regions, in the heart of them 
 she couldn't walk miles in the rain with the roads 
 in a vile condition, and growing viler every 
 minute as the rain sank in and the mud grew
 
 214 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 deeper. And then another thought a thought 
 that came now, sharp and quick, engulfing the mere 
 discomfort of a miserable night spent there in the 
 woods the clatter of busy, gossiping tongues 
 seemed already to be dinning their abominable 
 noises in his ears. And that he, that he yes, 
 it seemed to sweep upon him in a sudden, over- 
 mastering surge, the realization that the delight 
 and joy of her companionship through the month 
 that was gone was love that leaped now into fierce, 
 jealous flame, maddened at a breath that would 
 smirch her in the eyes of others that he should 
 be the cause of it! "What do people do when 
 they're caught like this?" in their innocence 
 there seemed an unfathomed depth of irony in her 
 words, but as he unconsciously repeated them they 
 cleared his brain and brought him suddenly to face 
 the immediate practical problem that confronted 
 them. What was to be done? 
 
 " Shall shall I get out? " she called to him, 
 a hint of reminder in her tones that she had spoken 
 to him before and received no answer. 
 
 Thornton moved back to the side of the car. 
 
 " Miss Vail," he said contritely, "I I don't 
 know what to say to you for getting you into this. 
 I" 
 
 " I know," she interrupted quickly, leaning over 
 the side of the car and placing her hand on his 
 arm. " Don't try to say anything. It's not your 
 fault it's not either of our faults. Now tell me 
 what you think the best thing is to do, and, you'll
 
 HELENA TAKES A RIDE 
 
 see, I'll make the best of it there's no use being 
 miserable about it." 
 
 'You're a game little woman!" he said ear- 
 nestly, quite unnecessarily clasping the hand on his 
 arm and wringing it to endorse his verdict. " And 
 that makes it a lot easier, you know. Well then, 
 we might as well face the whole truth at one fell 
 swoop. We're up against it " he laughed 
 cheerfully " hard. It's miles to anywhere 
 we don't know where ' anywhere ' is and of 
 course you can't walk aimlessly around in the mud 
 and rain." 
 
 " N no," she said thoughtfully. ** I suppose 
 there's no sense in that." 
 
 " And of course you can't sit out here in the wet 
 all night." 
 
 44 That sounds comforting propitious even," 
 commented Helena. 
 
 "Quite!" agreed Thornton, laughing again. 
 " Well, you wait here a moment, and I'll see if I 
 can't knock up some sort of shelter I used to be 
 pretty good at that sort of thing." 
 
 " And I'll help," announced Helena, preparing 
 to get out. 
 
 " By keeping at least your feet dry," he 
 amended. " No please. Just stay where you 
 are, Miss Vail. You'll get as much protection 
 here from the branches overhead as you will any- 
 where meanwhile, and you'll be more comfort- 
 able." 
 
 She watched him as he disappeared into the
 
 216 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 wood, and after that, like a flitting will-o'-the-wisp, 
 watched his flashlight moving about amongst the 
 trees. Then presently the cheery blaze of a fire 
 from where he was at work sprang up, and she 
 heard the crackle of resinous pine knots then a 
 great crashing about, the snapping of branches as 
 he broke them from larger limbs and a rapid 
 fire of small talk from him as he worked. 
 
 Helena answered him more or less mechanically 
 
 her mind, roving from one consideration of 
 their plight to another, had caught at a certain 
 viewpoint and was groping with it. They were 
 stalled more effectively than any accident to the 
 car could have stalled them they were there for 
 the night, there seemed no escape from that. But 
 there was nothing to be afraid of. She had no 
 fears about passing the night alone with him here 
 in the woods why should she? Why should 
 she! She laughed low, suddenly, bitterly. Why 
 should she even if he were other than the man 
 he was, even if he were of the lowest type ! Fear 
 
 of that! A yearning, so intense as for an in- 
 stant to leave her weak, swept upon her a 
 yearning full of pain, of shame, of remorse, of 
 hopelessness oh, God, if only she might have 
 had the right to fear! Then passion seized her 
 in wild, turbulent unrestraint hatred for this 
 clean-limbed, pure-minded man, who flaunted all 
 that his life stood for in her face hatred for 
 everybody in this life of hers, for all were good 
 save her hatred, miserable, unbridled hatred 
 for herself.
 
 HELENA TAKES A RIDE 217 
 
 And then it passed, the mood and she tried 
 to think more calmly, still answering him as he 
 called from the woods. She had seen a great deal 
 of Thornton lately a great deal. He had been 
 kind and thoughtful and considerate nothing 
 more. More! What more could there have 
 been? Love! There was something of mock- 
 ery in that, wasn't there ? Everything she thought 
 about lately, every way her mind turned seemed 
 to hold something of mockery now. Of course, 
 Mrs. Thornton's words expressing the wish that 
 she and Thornton might come together had been 
 often enough with her mockingly again ! but 
 Thornton could have known nothing of that so, 
 after all, what did that matter? She had snatched 
 at every opportunity to motor with Thornton de- 
 spite Doc's protests, protests that had grown sul- 
 len and angry of late snatched at the opportu- 
 nities eagerly, as she would snatch at a breath of 
 air where all else stifled her snatched at them 
 because they took her out of herself temporarily, 
 away from everything, where everything at times 
 seemed to be driving her mad Hate Thornton ! 
 No, of course, she didn't hate him she had 
 thought that a moment ago because because her 
 brain was was oh, she didn't know so 
 tired and weary, and she was cold now and quite 
 wet. She didn't hate him, she even 
 
 " All ready now house to let furnished " 
 he was calling out, laughing as he came thrashing 
 through the undergrowth " excellent situation, 
 high altitude, luxuriant pine grove surrounds the
 
 218 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 property, and and " he had halted beside the 
 car and opened the door "what else do they 
 say?" 
 
 Helena caught his spirit or, rather, forced 
 herself to do so. It wasn't quite fair that one of 
 them should do all the pretending. 
 
 " Flies," she laughed. " They always speak of 
 flies in Maine." 
 
 " None ! " said Thornton promptly. " There 
 hasn't been one since the house was built. Now 
 then, Miss Vail " he held out his arms. 
 
 " Oh, but really, I can walk." 
 
 " And I can carry you," he said and, from 
 the step, gathered her into his arms. 
 
 And then, as she lay there passively at first, she 
 seemed to sense again that curious diffidence, that 
 gentleness, like the touch upon her throat of a 
 little while ago, though now he held her in both 
 his arms. How strong he was and, oh, how 
 miserably wet her hand around his shoulder 
 felt the thin shirt clinging soggily to his arm. Yes ; 
 she was glad he hadn't let her walk it wasn't 
 far, but she would have had to force her way con- 
 tinually through bushes that scattered showers 
 from their dripping leaves, and underfoot she 
 could hear his boots squash through the mud. 
 And then suddenly it happened the trees, just a 
 yard or so from the fire, were thick together, 
 tangled she bent her head quickly, instinctively, 
 to avoid a low-hanging branch as he for the same 
 reason swerved a little and their cheeks lay 
 close-pressed against each other's, her hair sweep-
 
 HELENA TAKES A RIDE 219 
 
 ing his forehead, their lips mingling one another's 
 breaths. He seemed to stumble then his arms 
 closed about her in a quick, fierce pressure, clasp- 
 ing her, straining her to him relaxed as sud- 
 denly and then he had set her down inside the 
 shelter he had built. 
 
 Quick her breath was coming now, and across 
 the fire for a moment she met his eyes. His face 
 was gray, and his hands at his sides were clenched. 
 
 " I'll I'll get the seat out of the car," he said 
 hoarsely. " It will help to make things more 
 comfortable." And turning abruptly, he started 
 back for the road again. 
 
 Helena did not move. Mechanically her eyes 
 took in the little hut, crude, but rainproof at least 
 branches heaped across two forked limbs for a 
 roof; the trunk of a big tree for the rear wall; 
 branches thrust upright into the ground for the 
 sides the whole a little triangular shaped af- 
 fair. The fire blazed in front just within shelter 
 at the entrance ; and beside it was piled quite a lit- 
 tle heap of fuel that he had gathered. 
 
 He came back bringing the leather upholstered 
 seat, shook the rain from it, and dried it with the 
 help of the fire and his handkerchief then set 
 it down inside the hut. His face was turned from 
 'her; and as he spoke, breaking an awkward si- 
 lence, his voice was conscious, hurried. 
 
 " I'm not going to be gone a minute more than 
 I can help, Miss Vail. It's mighty rough accom- 
 modation for you, but there's one consolation at 
 least you'll be perfectly safe."
 
 220 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 Helena seated herself, and held her skirt to the 
 fire. 
 
 " Gone ! " she said, a little dully. " Where are 
 you going ? " 
 
 " Why, to get help of course," he told her. 
 
 " Help ! " she shook her head. " You don't 
 know where to find any you only know for a 
 certainty that there isn't any within miles." 
 
 " I know there's a house back on the main 
 road," he said. " I noticed it as we came along." 
 
 ' That's seven or eight miles from here," she 
 returned. " And it's raining harder than ever 
 mud up to your ankles it would take you hours 
 to reach it." 
 
 " Possibly two, or two and a half," he said 
 lightly. 
 
 " Yes ; and another two at least to get back. I 
 won't hear of you doing any such thing you are 
 wet through now. It's far better to wait for day- 
 light and then probably the storm will be over." 
 
 " But don't you see, Miss Vail " his voice was 
 suddenly grave, masterful " don't you see that 
 there is no other thing to do? " 
 
 " No," said Helena. " I don't see anything of 
 the kind. I won't have you do anything like that 
 for me it's not to be thought of." 
 
 Thornton stooped, placed a knot upon the fire, 
 straightened up and faced her. 
 
 " It's awfully good of you to think of me," he 
 said in a low tone; " but, really, it won't be half 
 as bad as you are picturing it in your mind. And 
 really " he hesitated, fumbling for his words
 
 HELENA TAKES A RIDE 221 
 
 " you see that is what other people might 
 say your reputation " 
 
 With a sudden cry, white-faced, Helena was on 
 her feet, staring at him, her hands clutched at her 
 bosom a wild, demoniacal, mocking orgy in her 
 soul. Her reputation ! It seemed she wanted to 
 scream out the words her reputation! 
 
 Thornton's face flushed with a quick-sweeping 
 flood of crimson. 
 
 " I'm a brute a brute with a blundering 
 tongue ! " he cried miserably. " You had not 
 thought of that and I made you. I could have 
 found another excuse for going if I had only had 
 wit enough. I was a brute once before to-night, 
 and " He stopped, and for a moment stood 
 there looking at her, stood in the firelight, his face 
 white again even in the ruddy glow and then 
 he was gone. 
 
 Time passed without meaning to Helena. The 
 steady patter of the rain was on the leaves, the 
 sullen, constant drip of water to the ground, and 
 now, occasionally, a rush of wind, a heavier down- 
 pour. She sat before the fire, staring into it, her 
 elbows on her knees, her face held tightly in her 
 hands, the brown hair, wet and wayward now, 
 about her temples. Once she moved, once her 
 eyes changed their direction to fix upon her 
 sleeve in a strange, questioning surprise. 
 
 " I let him go without his coat," she saido
 
 XVIII 
 
 THE BOOMERANG 
 
 IT was early afternoon, as Madison, emerging 
 from the wagon track, and walking slowly, 
 started across the lawn toward the Patri- 
 arch's cottage. He was in a mood that he 
 made no attempt to define except that it wasn't 
 a very pleasant mood. Before Thornton had re- 
 turned to Needley it had been bad enough, after 
 that, with his infernal car, it had been hell. 
 
 Madison's fists clenched, and his gray eyes 
 glinted angrily. His hands had been tied like a 
 baby's like a damned infant's! Helena was 
 getting away from him further every day, and he 
 couldn't stop it without stopping the game! 
 He couldn't tell Thornton that Helena belonged 
 to him had belonged to him ! He couldn't 
 even evidence an interest in what was going 
 on. He had to put oh a front, a suave, cor- 
 dial, dignified front before Thornton while he 
 itched to smash the other's face to pulp ! Hell > 
 that's what it was pure, unadulterated hell! 
 He couldn't get near Helena alone with a ten-foot 
 pole, morning, noon or night she had taken 
 good care of that. And he wanted Helena he 
 wanted her! It was an obsession with him now 
 5 at times driving him half crazy and it didn't 
 
 222

 
 THE BOOMERANG 223 
 
 help any that he saw her grow more glorious, 
 more beautiful every day! Of course she knew 
 she had him had him where she knew he 
 couldn't do a thing where she could laugh at 
 him go the limit with Thornton if she liked. 
 But, curse it, it wasn't only Thornton that was 
 what he could not understand she had begun to 
 keep away from him before ever Thornton had 
 come back. 
 
 Madison was near the porch now, and, raising 
 his eyes, noted a supplicant going into the shrine- 
 room a woman, richly dressed but in widow's 
 weeds, who walked feebly. The game went on 
 by itself, once started there were half a hundred 
 more about the lawn! Like a snowball rolling 
 down hill, as he had put it at the Roost. The 
 Roost! If he only had Helena back there for 
 about a minute there'd be an end of this ! She'd 
 go a little too far one of these days a little too 
 far it was pretty near far enough now and 
 then there'd be a showdown, game or no game, 
 and somebody would get hurt in the smash, and 
 
 He lifted his eyes again, as some one came 
 hurrying through the cottage door. It was the 
 Flopper. And then to his surprise, he found 
 himself being pushed unceremoniously from the 
 porch and pulled excitedly behind the trellis. 
 
 " What's the matter with you ! " he demanded 
 angrily. "Are you crazy!" 
 
 " T'ank de Lord youse have showed up!" 
 gasped the Flopper. " Say, honest, I can't do 
 nothin' wid him he's got me near bughouse.'*
 
 224 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 " Who? " Madison scowled irritably. 
 
 " De Patriarch, of course. He's noivous, an* 
 gettin' worse all de time. He won't eat an' he 
 won't keep still. He wants Helena, an' he keeps 
 writin' her name on de slate he's got me go- 
 ing fer fair." 
 
 " Well, I'm not Helena ! " growled Madison. 
 " Why doesn't she go to him? " 
 
 "Now wouldn't dat sting youse!" ejaculated 
 the Flopper. " How's she goin' to him when 
 she ain't here? " 
 
 " Not here?" repeated Madison sharply. 
 "Where is she?" 
 
 The Flopper looked down his nose. 
 
 " I dunno," said he. 
 
 Madison stared at him for a moment then 
 he reached out and caught the Flopper's arm in a 
 sudden and far from gentle grip. 
 
 " Out with it! " he snapped. 
 
 " I dunno where she is," said the Flopper, with 
 some reluctance. " She ain't back yet, dat's 
 all." 
 
 " Back from where? " Madison's grip tight- 
 ened. 
 
 The Flopper blinked. 
 
 " Aw, wot's de use ! " he blurted out, as though 
 his mind, suddenly made up, brought him un- 
 bounded relief. ' Youse'll find it out anyhow. 
 Say, she went off wid Thornton in de buzz-wagon 
 yesterday, an' I put de Patriarch to bed last night 
 'cause she wasn't back, an' dat's wot's de matter 
 wid him, she ain't showed up since an' he's near
 
 THE BOOMERANG 225 
 
 off his chump, an' fer God's sake let go my arm, 
 Doc, youse're breakin' it! " 
 
 A sort of cold frenzy seemed to seize Madi- 
 son. He was perfectly calm, he felt himself 
 perfectly calm and composed. Off all night with 
 Thornton eh ? Funny, wasn't it ? She'd gone 
 pretty far a', last gone the limit. 
 
 " Why didn't you send me word this morn- 
 ing? " was that his own voice speaking? Well, 
 he wouldn't have recognized it but he was 
 perfectly calm nevertheless. 
 
 " Fer God's sake let go my arm," whimpered 
 the Flopper. "I I ain't no squealer, dat's 
 why." 
 
 Madison's arm fell away to his side. He 
 felt a whiteness creeping to his face and lips, felt 
 his lips twitch, felt the fingers of his hands curl 
 in and the nails begin to press into the palms. 
 
 " Mabbe," suggested the Flopper timidly, 
 " mabbe dere was an accident." 
 
 Madison made no answer. 
 
 The Flopper shifted from foot to foot and 
 licked his lips, stealing frightened glances at Mad- 
 ison's face. 
 
 "Wot- wot'll I do wid de Patriarch?" he 
 stammered out miserably. 
 
 And then Madison smiled at him not hap- 
 pily, but eloquently. 
 
 " Swipe me ! " mumbled the Flopper, as he 
 backed out from the trellis. " Dis love game's 
 fierce an' mabbe / don't know! 'Sposin' 
 she'd been Mamie an' me the Doc 'sposin' it
 
 226 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 had! " He gulped hastily. " Swipe me! " said 
 the Fiopper with emotion. 
 
 Madison, motionless, watched the Fiopper 
 disappear. He wasn't quite so calm now, not so 
 cool and collected and composed. He must go 
 somewhere and think this out somewhere 
 where it would be quiet and he wouldn't be dis- 
 turbed. 
 
 A step sounded on the path Madison looked 
 through the trellis. A man, with yellow, un- 
 healthy skin and sunken cheeks, his head bowed, 
 was passing in through the porch. It caught 
 Madison with fierce, exquisite irony. Why not 
 go there himself if he wanted quiet the shrine- 
 room the place of meditation! Well, he 
 wanted to meditate! He laughed jarringly. 
 The shrine-room for him ! Great ! Immense ! 
 Magnificent! Why not? That's what he had 
 created it for, wasn't it to meditate in ! 
 
 He stepped inside. The woman, whom he had 
 seen enter a short while before, was sitting in a 
 sort of rigid, strained attitude in the far corner; 
 the man, who had just preceded him, had taken 
 the chair by the fireplace they were the only 
 occupants of the room. There was no sound 
 save his own footsteps neither of the others 
 looked at him. There was quiet, a profound 
 stillness and the softened light from the shut- 
 tered window fell mellow all about, fell like a 
 benediction upon the simplicity of the few plain 
 articles that the room contained the round rag 
 mats upon the white-scrubbed floor; the hickory
 
 THE BOOMERANG 227 
 
 chairs, severe, uncushioned; the table, with its 
 little japanned box and book. 
 
 Madison's eyes fixed upon the japanned box, 
 as he leaned now, arms folded, against the wall 
 
 a jewel, even in the subdued light, glowed 
 crimson-warm where it nested on a crumpled bed 
 of bank-notes a ruby ring the last contribu- 
 tion it must have been the woman who had 
 placed it there. Madison glanced at her invol- 
 untarily but his thoughts were far away again 
 in a moment. 
 
 Anger and a blind rage of jealousy were 
 gripping him now. Accident! The thought 
 only fanned his fury. Accident! Yes; it was 
 likely as an excuse ! There would have been 
 an accident all right leave that to them ! 
 Thornton perhaps wasn't the stamp of man to seek 
 an adventure of that kind deliberately per- 
 haps he wasn't and perhaps he was you 
 never could tell but what difference did that 
 make ! Helena was that kind of a woman 
 though he'd always thought her true to him since 
 he'd known her and Thornton, whatever kind 
 of a man he was, wouldn't run away from her 
 arms, would he? 
 
 The red glow from the ruby ring had vanished 
 
 the man had risen from his seat and was plac- 
 ing something in the box on top of the ring 
 Madison's mind subconsciously absorbed the fact 
 that it was a little sheaf of yellow-backed bills. 
 And now the man bent to the table and was writ- 
 ing in the book.
 
 228 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 Yellow-backs and rubies ! Rubies and yellow- 
 backs ! Madison's lips thinned and curled down- 
 ward at the corners. Oh, it was coming all right, 
 money, jewels, pelf, rolling in merrily every day, 
 there wasn't any stopping it, but he was paying 
 for it, and paying for it at a price he didn't like 
 
 Helena. Helena ! She wanted Thornton, 
 did she with his money ! Wanted to dangle a 
 millionaire on her string eh? She'd throw 
 him over would she! And she thought she 
 had him where he couldn't lift a finger to stop it 
 
 just sit back and grin like a poor, sick fool ! 
 The red crept up the knotted cords of Madi- 
 son's neck, suffused the set jaws, and, as though 
 suddenly liberated to run its course where it 
 would, swept in a *ide over cheeks and temples. 
 
 He couldn't do a thing couldn't he! Well, 
 he'd see the game in Gehenna before Thornton or 
 any other man got her away from him. She be- 
 longed to him to him! And he'd have her, 
 hold her, own her she was his his! And 
 he'd settle with Thornton too, by Heaven! 
 
 A laugh, low, unpleasant, purled to his lips 
 and he checked it with a sort of strange mechani- 
 cal realization that he must not laugh aloud. His 
 eyes swept the room the man had returned to 
 his seat, the woman had not moved, both were 
 silent, motionless that ghastly, hallowed, sanc- 
 timonious hush that subdued, damnable light 
 ' meditation ! 
 
 " For God's sake let me get out of here," he 
 muttered, " or I'll go mad."
 
 THE BOOMERANG 229 
 
 He turned and stopped. Came a cry 
 spontaneously from the man and the woman 
 they were on their feet no, on their knees. 
 The doorway at the further end of the room was 
 framing a majestic figure, tall and stately and 
 a sun-gleam struggling suddenly through the lat- 
 tice seemed to leap in a golden ray to caress in 
 homage the snow-white hair, the silver beard that 
 fell upon the breast, the saintly face of the Patri- 
 arch. 
 
 Then into the room advanced the Patriarch, 
 and his hands were outstretched before him, and 
 he moved them a little to and fro and the ges- 
 ture, the poise, the mien, as, touching nothing he 
 seemed to feel His way through space itself, was 
 as one invoking a blessing of peace ineffable. 
 
 Spellbound, Madison watched. Upon the 
 face was a yearning that saddened it, and, sad- 
 dening, glorified it; the head was slightly turned 
 as though to listen while slowly, with meas- 
 ured, certain tread, as though mr^r vad 10 
 need for eyes, the Patriarch, ^ixicc cne cable and 
 passed on down the room. The man and the 
 woman reached out and touched him reverently, 
 and drew back reverently to let him pass, and, 
 rising from their knees, followed him through the 
 door and out onto the porch. 
 
 The room was empty. Madison stared at the 
 doorway. Upon him fell a sudden awe it was 
 as though a vision, an ethereal presence, some 
 strange embodiment of power, had been and gone 
 and yet still remained.
 
 2 3 o THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 And now from without there came a sound like 
 a distant murmur. It rose and swelled, and be- 
 gan to roll in its volume, and then, like the clar- 
 ion sound of trumpets, voices burst into glad ac- 
 claim. 
 
 "The Patriarch! The Patriarch! The Pa- 
 triarch ! " 
 
 From the little hallway came the Flopper, run- 
 ning and he stopped and gaped at Madison. 
 
 " I left him in his room fer a minute," he 
 gasped. " He's he's lookin' fer Helena." 
 
 And then Madison shook himself together 
 and smiled ironically. And at the smile the 
 Flopper hurried on. 
 
 Madison stepped out onto the porch. Helena ! 
 Helena ! Within him seemed to burn a rage of 
 hell; but it seemed, too, most strangely that for 
 the moment this rage was held in abeyance, that 
 something temporarily supplanted it this scene 
 before him. 
 
 Onward across the lawn moved the Patriarch, 
 and the Flopper had joined him now; but the Pa- 
 triarch, unheeding, turning neither to the right 
 nor to the left, his arms still extended before him, 
 kept on. And the people cried aloud: 
 
 "He is coming he is coming! The Patri- 
 arch! The Patriarch!" 
 
 Madison moved on out upon the lawn him- 
 self. 
 
 From everywhere, from every scattered spot 
 where they had been, men and women ran and
 
 THE BOOMERANG 231 
 
 limped and dragged themselves along, all con- 
 verging on one point the Patriarch. 
 
 Madison, in the midst of them now, hurried 
 for it was plainly evident that the Flopper's con- 
 trol over the Patriarch was gone. He reached 
 the Patriarch and touched the other's arm and 
 at the touch the Patriarch halted instantly, his 
 hand went out and lay upon Madison's sleeve in 
 recognition, and he turned his face, and it was 
 smiling and there was relief upon it and con- 
 fidence and trust, as, suffering himself to be 
 guided, they started back toward the cottage. 
 
 And then upon Madison came again that 
 sense of awe, but now intensified. From every 
 hand tear-stained faces greeted him, white faces, 
 faces full of sorrow and suffering through which 
 struggled hope hope hope. They flung 
 themselves before the Patriarch yet never 
 blocked the way. They cried, they wept, they 
 prayed and some were silent. It seemed that 
 souls, naked, stripped, bare, held themselves up to 
 his gaze. Men, prostrate on stretchers, tried to 
 rise and stagger nearer and fell. Friends, 
 where there were friends to help, tugged and 
 dragged desperately at cots and from the cots 
 in piteous, agonized appeal the helpless cried out 
 to the Patriarch to come to them. All of human 
 agony and fear and hope and despair and terror 
 seemed loosed in a mad and swirling vortex. And 
 ever the cries arose, and ever around them, giving 
 way, closing in again, pressed the soul-rent throng.
 
 232 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 And presently to Madison it seemed as though 
 he had awakened from some terrifying dream, 
 as, in the Patriarch's room again, he swept away 
 a bead of sweat from his forehead, and stood and 
 looked at the Patriarch and the Flopper. 
 
 The Flopper licked his lips, and pulled the 
 Patriarch's chair forward but his hands trem- 
 bled violently. 
 
 " It's been gettin' me, Doc," he whispered, 
 "an' I can't help it. It's been gettin' into me all 
 de time. Say, I wisht it was over. Honest to 
 God I do ! Dis dis makes me queer. Say, 
 de Patriarch's got me, Doc an' an' say 
 dere's been somethin' goin' on inside me dat's 
 got me hard." 
 
 Madison did not answer but he started sud- 
 denly - and as suddenly stepped to the window 
 and looked out. Over the cries, the wailings, 
 the confused medley of voices, growing lower 
 now, subsiding, there had come the throb of a 
 motor car. 
 
 Madison's eyes narrowed that was supreme 
 again. A car was coming to a stop before the 
 porch Thornton was helping Helena to alight. 
 
 Madison turned and caught the Flopper's arm 
 in a fierce, imperative grasp. 
 
 " You keep your mouth shut do you hear? " 
 he flung out, clipping off his words. " You 
 haven't seen me to-day understand ! " And, 
 dropping the Flopper's arm, he stepped quickly 
 across the little hall to Helena's door, opened it, 
 went in and closed the door behind him.
 
 THE BOOMERANG 233 
 
 And the Flopper, staring, licked his lips again. 
 
 " Swipe me! " he croaked hoarsely. " Pipe de 
 
 eyes on de Doc! Dere'll be somethin' doin' 
 
 now!
 
 THE SANCTUARY OF DARKNESS 
 
 1 
 
 *^HERE was a grim, merciless smile on 
 Madison's lips; and a whiteness in his 
 face windowed the passion that seethed 
 within him. He stood motionless, lis- 
 tening, in Helena's room. He heard the automo- 
 bile going away again; then he heard Helena's 
 light step in the hallway without and the smile 
 died as his lips thinned. 
 
 But she did not come in instead, he heard 
 her go into the Patriarch's room, heard her talk- 
 ing to the Patriarch, and bid the Flopper go to 
 the kitchen and make her some tea. Then the 
 Flopper's step sounded, passing down to the rear 
 of the cottage. 
 
 The minutes passed then that light footfall 
 again. The door of the room swung suddenly 
 wide and closed there was a cry and 
 Helena, wide-eyed, the red of her cheeks fading 
 away, leaned heavily back against the door. 
 
 Neither spoke. Madison, in the center of the 
 room, did not move. The smile came back to 
 his lips. 
 
 Helena's great brown eyes met the gray ones, 
 read the ugly glint, dropped, raised again anc 
 held the gray ones steadily. 
 
 234
 
 THE SANCTUARY OF DARKNESS 235 
 
 Madison gave a short laugh that was like a 
 curse. His hands at his sides knotted into lumps. 
 
 Then Madison spoke. 
 
 " Why don't you say, * you ! you! ' and 
 scream it out and clutch at your bosom the way 
 they do in story books ! " he flung out raucously. 
 " Why don't you do your little stunt go on, 
 you're on for the turn you can put anything over 
 me, I'm only a complacent, blind-eyed fool ! 
 Anything goes! Why don't you start your 
 act?" 
 
 " You don't know what you are saying," she 
 said in a low voice. " If there's anything you 
 want to talk about, we'd better wait until you're 
 cooler." 
 
 " Oh, hell! " he roared, his passion full to the 
 surface now. "Cut out the bunk cut it out! 
 Anything! No, it isn't much of anything for 
 you out all night with Thornton. Do you 
 think I'm going to stand for it! Do you think 
 I'm going to sit and suck my thumb and share 
 you, and " 
 
 "You lie!" She was away from the door 
 now, close before him, her breath coming fast, 
 white to the lips, and in a frenzy her little fists 
 pummelled upon him. " It's a lie a lie a 
 lie! It's a lie and you know it!" 
 
 He pushed her roughly from him. 
 
 "It is, eh?" his words came in a sort of 
 wild laugh. "And I know it do I? Why 
 should I know it? What do you think you are? 
 Say, you'd think you were trying to kid yourself
 
 236 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 into believing you're the real thing the real, 
 sweet, shy, modest Miss Vail. Cut it out! 
 You're name's Smith maybe ! And it's my 
 money that's keeping you, and you belong to me 
 
 do you understand? " 
 
 She stood swaying a little, her hands still tightly 
 clenched, breathing through half parted lips in 
 short, quick, jerky inhalations like dry sobs. 
 
 " It's true," she faltered suddenly and sud- 
 denly buried her face in her hands. And then 
 she looked up again, and the brown eyes in their 
 depths held an anger and a shame. " It's true 
 I was was what you say. But now " her 
 voice hurried on, an eagerness, a strange earnest- 
 ness in it "you must believe me you must. 
 I'll make you I must make you." 
 
 "Oh, don't hurt yourself trying to do it!" 
 jeered Madison. " We're talking plain now. 
 I'm not taking into account how you feel about it 
 
 don't you fool yourself for a minute. The 
 sanctity of my home hasn't been ruined be- 
 cause it couldn't be! Get that? Thornton don't 
 get you not for keeps! But you and he don't 
 make a monkey of me again. Do you understand 
 
 say, do you get that? You're mine whether 
 you like it or not whether you'd rather have 
 Thornton or not. But I'll fix you both for this 
 
 I'm no angel with a cherub's smile ! I'll take 
 it out of Thornton till the laugh he's got now 
 fades to a f are-thee-well ; and I'll put you where 
 there aren't any strings tying me up the way there 
 are here. Do you understand! " His voice rose
 
 THE SANCTUARY OF DARKNESS 237 
 
 suddenly, and for a moment he seemed to lose all 
 control of himself as he reached for her and 
 caught her shoulder. " I love you," he flashed 
 out between his teeth. " I love you that's 
 what's the matter with me ! And you know that 
 you know you've got me there and you'd 
 play the fool with me, would you ! " He dropped 
 his hands and laughed a short, savage bark 
 and stepped back and stared at her. 
 
 ; ' Will you listen?" she was twisting her 
 hands, her head was drooped, the long lashes 
 veiled her eyes, her lips were quivering. " Will 
 you listen? " she said again, fighting to steady her 
 voice. " It was an accident." 
 
 " I saw the machine when you drove up it 
 was a wreck! " snapped Madison sarcastically. 
 
 " We ran out of gasoline," she said quietly. 
 
 And then Madison laughed fiercely in his 
 derision. 
 
 " Oh, keep on ! " he rasped. " I told you I 
 was only a blind fool that you could put anything 
 over on ! That accounts for it, of course a 
 breakdown isn't so easy to get away with. Gaso- 
 line!" 
 
 " We were miles from anywhere," she went on. 
 " We had taken what we thought was a short cut. 
 Mr. Thornton built a shelter for me in the woods, 
 and went to to " 
 
 He caught up her hesitation like a flash. 
 
 " Fake the lines, Helena, if you haven't had 
 enough rehearsals," he suggested ironically. 
 " Anything goes with me."
 
 238 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 And now a tinge of color came to Helena's 
 cheeks, and the brown eyes raised, and flashed, 
 and dropped. 
 
 " He went to try and find help," she said. 
 " He was out all night in the storm. I do not 
 know how far he must have walked. I know the 
 nearest house was five or six miles away and 
 there was no horse there the man had driven 
 to some town that morning. It was almost day- 
 light before Mr. Thornton at last came back with 
 a team. We were forty miles from here we 
 sent the team to the nearest town for gasoline 
 and then motored back." She stopped and 
 then, with a catch in her voice : " He he was 
 very good to me." 
 
 " Good to me " the words seemed to stab 
 at Madison, seemed to ring in his ears and goad 
 him with a fiercer jealousy and her story 
 of the night, what she had been saying, save those 
 words, was as nothing, meant nothing, was swept 
 from his consciousness and only she, standing 
 there before him, glorious, maddening in her 
 beauty, remained. Soul, mind and body leaped 
 into fiery passion she was his, and his she al- 
 ways would be those eyes, those lips, the white 
 throat, those perfect arms to cling about his neck 
 and all of heaven and hell and earth were 
 naught beside her. 
 
 " I love you! " his face was white, his words 
 fierce-breathed, almost incoherent and he 
 leaned toward her with a sudden, uncontrollable 
 movement, his arms sweeping out to clasp her.
 
 THE SANCTUARY OF DARKNESS 239 
 
 " I love you, Helena I love you. Do you un- 
 derstand it's you! You I love you!" 
 
 'You love me!" she retreated from him, 
 but her head was raised now, and her voice rang 
 with a bitterness cold as the touch of death. 
 " Love! What do you know of love! We talk 
 plain, you say. Love love for me ! Passion, 
 vice, lust, sin and, oh, my God, degradation 
 and misery and shame love I Love ! That is 
 your love! " 
 
 He stood for a moment and stared at her again 
 
 and her face was as pallid ivory. And some- 
 thing seemed to daze him, and he brushed his 
 hand across his eyes the logic was faulty, torn 
 and pitiful, and he groped after the flaw. 
 
 " It's it's your love as well as mine," he said 
 in a stumbling way then his brain flashed quick 
 into action. " My love what other love have 
 you known but that? " he cried. " It's our love 
 
 the love we have known together and we're 
 going back to it see ? I've had enough of this. 
 You pack your trunks and pack them quick ! 
 We're going to beat it out of here ! We're going 
 back to our love. We're going back where I 
 don't have to sit around like a puling fool and 
 watch Thornton chuck you under the chin we're 
 going where he'll want a tombstone If he ever 
 shows his face there. You thought the game 
 would hold me to the last jackpot did you? 
 Well, I've got enough and there's no game big 
 enough to make me stand for this. That looks 
 like love doesn't it? " He burst again into a
 
 240 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 sudden, mirthless laugh and once again swept 
 his hand across his eyes. ' We're going to beat 
 it out of here now to-night to-morrow morn- 
 ing." 
 
 But now she had drawn further away from him 
 
 and there was a frightened look in her eyes, 
 and her lips quivered pitifully. 
 
 "No I can't I can't," she cried out. 
 " No, no I can't I can't go back to that." 
 
 "That! That is love," he said wildly. 
 " The only love you know. What more do you 
 want? There's loot enough now, and ha, ha! 
 
 that little contribution of Thornton's, to give 
 you all the money you want. Love, Helena 
 you and I the old love you and I together 
 again, Helena. I tell you I love you do you 
 hear? I love you and I'll have you I love 
 you ! What do you know, what do you care 
 about any other kind of love ! " 
 
 She looked at him, misery and fear still in her 
 eyes, and her slight figure seemed to droop, and 
 her hands hung heavy, listless, at her sides. 
 
 " I care " the words came in a strange me- 
 chanical way from her lips. " Oh, I care. I 
 can't I won't go back to that. And I know 
 I know now. I have learned what love is." 
 
 Quick over Madison's face surged the red in 
 an unstemmed tide volcanic within him his love 
 that he knew now possessed his very soul, jealousy 
 that, blinding, robbed him of his senses, roused 
 him to frenzy. 
 
 " Oh, you've learned what love is, have you
 
 THE SANCTUARY OF DARKNESS 241 
 
 with him!" he cried and sprang for her and 
 snatched her into his arms. " And you won't 
 come, eh? Well, I've learned what love is too in 
 the last month and if I can't get it one way, 
 I'll get it another " he was raining mad kisses 
 upon her face, her hair, her eyes " I love you, 
 I tell you I love you 1 " 
 
 With a cry she tried to struggle from him 
 and then fought and struck at him, beating upon 
 his face with her fists. Fiercer, closer he held 
 her around the little room, staggering this way 
 and that, they circled. He kissed her, laughing 
 hoarsely like a madman, laughing at the blows, 
 beside himself, not knowing what he did mad 
 
 mad mad. He kissed her, kissed the white 
 throat where the dress was torn now at the neck ; 
 imprisoned a little fist that struck at him and kissed 
 the quivering knuckles; kissed the wealth of glo- 
 rious, burnished-copper hair that, unloosened, fell 
 about her, kissed it and buried his face in its rare 
 fragrance. And then and then his arms were 
 empty and he was staring at the calm, majestic 
 figure of the Patriarch and Helena was 
 crouched upon the floor, and, sobbing, was cling- 
 ing with arms entwined around the old man's 
 knees. 
 
 And so for a little while Madison stood and 
 stared what had brought the Patriarch there 
 
 the Patriarch who could neither see nor hear 
 nor speak what had brought him from his own 
 room across the hall I And Madison stared, and 
 his hands crept to his temples and pressed upon
 
 242 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 them weak he seemed as from some paroxysm 
 of madness that had passed over him. The sun- 
 light streaming through the window sheened the 
 luxuriant mass of hair that falling over shoulders 
 and to the waist seemed alone to cloak the little 
 figure in its crouched position the little figure 
 that shook so convulsively with sobs the little 
 figure that clung so desperately at the feet of this 
 god-like, regal man, whose beard was silver, 
 whose hair was hoary white, upon whose face, 
 marring none its strength or self-possession, was 
 a troubled, anxious, questioning look. 
 
 Strange! Strange! Madison's hands fell to 
 his sides. The Patriarch's eyes were turned full 
 upon him, wavering not so much as by the frac- 
 tion of an inch full upon him. And then, as 
 into some holy sanctuary, fending her from harm 
 and danger, the Patriarch turned a little to inter- 
 pose himself before Madison, and, raising 
 Helena, held her in his arms, her head against 
 his bosom and one hand lay upon her head 
 and stroked it tenderly. But upon Madison was 
 still turned those sightless eyes, that noble face, 
 serene, commanding even in its perturbation, even 
 in its alert and searching look. 
 
 Madison stirred now stirred uneasily 
 while the silence held. There was a solemnity 
 in the silence that seemed to creep upon and per- 
 vade the room a sense of a vast something that 
 was the antithesis of turmoil, passion, strife, that 
 seemed to radiate from the saintly figure whose 
 lips were mute, whose ears heard no sound, whose
 
 THE SANCTUARY OF DARKNESS 243 
 
 eyes saw no sight. And upon Madison it fell 
 potent, masterful, and passion fled, and in its 
 place came a strange, groping response within 
 him, a revulsion, a penitence and he bowed his 
 head. 
 
 And then Helena spoke but her head was 
 turned away from him, hidden on the Patriarch's 
 breast. 
 
 " Once," she said, and her words were like 
 broken whispers, for she was sobbing still, " once, 
 long, long ago, when I was a little girl, I read 
 the story of Mary Magdalen. I had almost for- 
 gotten it, it was so long ago, but it has come back 
 to me, and and it is a glad story at the end." 
 
 She stopped and Madison raised his head, 
 and his face was strained as with some sudden 
 wonder as he looked at her. 
 
 " It is a glad story," she said presently. " It 
 it is my story." 
 
 " You mean " Madison's voice was hoarse 
 " you mean that you've turned straight! " 
 
 " They love me here," she said. " They trust 
 me and they think me good as they are. All 
 think me that the little children and this dear 
 man here and for a little while, since I have 
 been here, I have lived like that. They made me 
 believe that it was true true. And there was 
 shame and agony and hope. It seemed they 
 could not all be wrong, and I have asked and 
 prayed that I might make it true always and - 
 and forgiveness for what I was." 
 
 " You mean," he said again hoarsely, and he
 
 244 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 stepped toward her now, " you mean that you 
 are straight! " 
 
 She did not answer only now she turned her 
 face toward him and lifted up her head. 
 
 And for a long minute Madison gazed into the 
 tear-splashed eyes, deep, brave in chastened wist- 
 fulness, gazed and like a man stunned walked 
 from the room, the cottage, and out across the 
 lawn.
 
 XX 
 
 TO THE VICTOR ARE THE SPOILS 
 
 MANY were still about the lawn as he 
 left the cottage they were all 
 about him, those sick, half frantic 
 creatures and still they made 
 noises; still some of them cried and sobbed; still 
 in their waning paroxysms they moved hither and 
 thither. They appealed to some numbed, dor- 
 mant sense in Madison, in a subconscious way, as 
 things to be avoided. And so, almost mechanic- 
 ally, he took the little path that, striking off at 
 right angles to the wagon track where it joined 
 the Patriarch's lawn, came out again upon the 
 main road at the further end of the village. 
 
 And, as he walked, like tidal waves on-rushing, 
 emotions, utterly at variance one with another, 
 hurled themselves upon him, and he was swept 
 from his mental balance, tossed here and there, 
 rolled gasping, strangling in the chaos and turmoil 
 of the waters, as it were, and, rising, was hurled 
 back again. 
 
 White as death itself was Madison's face; and 
 at times his fingers with a twitching movement 
 curled into clenched fists, at times his open palms 
 sought his temples in a queer wriggling way and 
 pressed upon them. Doubt, anger, fear, a rage 
 
 245
 
 24 6 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 unhallowed in cycles buffeted him until his 
 brain reeled, and he was as a man distraught. 
 
 It began at the beginning, that cycle, and 
 dragged him along and left him like one 
 swooning, tottering, upon the edge of a precipice. 
 And then it began over again. 
 
 And it began always with a picture of the Roost 
 that night the vicious, unkempt, ragged figure 
 of the Flopper the sickly, thin, greedy face of 
 Pale Face Harry, the drug fiend, winching a little 
 as he plunged the needle into his flesh the easy, 
 unprincipled gaiety and eagerness of Helena for 
 the new path of crime crime crime the 
 Roost exuded crime filth immorality 
 typified them, framed them well as they had sat 
 there, the four of them, while that bruised-nosed 
 bouncer had brought them drink on his rattling 
 tin tray. And then his own self-satisfied, smug, 
 complacent egotism at his own cleverness, his un- 
 bounded confidence in his own ability to pull off 
 the game, and 
 
 Well, he had pulled it off he'd won it 
 won it won it everybody had fallen for it 
 i the boobs had been plentiful the harvest 
 rich. What was the matter with him! He'd 
 won was winning every time the clock ticked. 
 Somebody back there was probably throwing good 
 hard coin at him this minute the damned fool ! 
 Madison threw back his head to laugh in derision, 
 for there was mocking, contemptuous laughter in 
 his soul but the laugh died still-born upon his 
 lips.
 
 THE SPOILS 247 
 
 It was fear now fear staggering, ap- 
 palling him. He was facing something 
 something his brain did not seem to define it 
 a something that was cold and stern and immuta- 
 ble, that was omnipotent, that embodied awe 
 a condemnation unalterable, unchangeable, be- 
 fore which he shrank back with his soul afraid. 
 Before him seemed to unfold itself the wagon 
 track, the road to the Patriarch's cottage; and 
 he was there again, and whispering lips were 
 around him, and men and women and children 
 were there, and in front of them, leading them, 
 slithered that twisted, misshapen, formless thing 
 1 and now they were upon the lawn, and about 
 him everywhere, everywhere, everywhere was a 
 sea of white faces out of which the eyes burned 
 like living coals. What power was this that, 
 loosed, had stricken them to palsied, moaning 
 things ! 
 
 Madison shivered a little and a sweat bead 
 oozed out and glistened upon his forehead. 
 Hark what was that! Clarionlike, clear as 
 the chimes of a silver bell, rang now that childish 
 voice rang out, and rang out again and the 
 crutch was gone and the lame boy ran, ran 
 ran! And who was that, that stood before him 
 now that golden-haired woman beside an 
 empty wheel-chair, whose face was radiant, who 
 cried aloud that she was cured! And who were 
 these others of later days, this motley crowd of 
 old and young, that passed before him in proces- 
 sion, that cried out the same words that golden-
 
 248 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 haired woman by the wheel-chair had cried 
 and cried out: "Faith! Faith! Faith!" 
 
 Madison swept the sweat bead from his fore- 
 head with a trembling hand. It was a lie a lie 
 a lie ! He had taught them to say that but 
 it was all bunk and all were fools ! He could 
 laugh at them, jeer at them, mock at them, deride 
 them they were his playthings and faith was 
 his plaything and he could laugh at them all ! 
 
 And again he raised his head to laugh; and 
 again the laugh was choked in his throat, still-born 
 - Helena was straight! To his temples went 
 his twitching hands. Anger raged upon him 
 and died in fear. Anger, for the instant mad- 
 dening him, that he should lose her; rage in 
 ungovernable fury that the game, his plans, the 
 hoard accumulated, was bursting like a bubble 
 before his eyes died in fear. No, no ; he had 
 not meant to lau'gh or mock no, no ; not that, 
 not that! What was this loosed titanic power 
 that had done these things that had brought 
 this change in Helena ; that had brought a change 
 in the Flopper, transforming the miserable, piti- 
 ful, whining thief into a man reaching out for 
 decent things ; that had wrought at least a physical 
 metamorphosis in Pale Face Harry that had ; 
 transfigured those three who, in their ugly, aban- 
 doned natures then, had hung like vultures on his 
 words in the Roost that night! What was this 
 power that he was trifling with, that brought him 
 now this cold, dead fear before which he quailed! 
 What was this something that in his temerity he
 
 THE SPOILS 249 
 
 had dared invoke that rose now engulfing him, 
 a puny maggot that snatched him up and flung 
 him headlong, shackled, before this nebulous, ter- 
 rifying tribunal, where out of nothingness, out of 
 a void, the calm, majestic features of the Patri- 
 arch took form and changed, and changed, and 
 kept changing, and grew implacable, set with the 
 stamp of doom. What was it in God's name, 
 what was it brought these sweat beads bursting 
 to his forehead! Was he going mad was he 
 mad already! 
 
 And then the cycle again doubt, anger, fear 
 
 until his brain, exhausted, seemed to refuse its 
 functions ; and it was as though, heavy, oppressing, 
 a dense fog shut down upon his mind and envel- 
 oped it; and now he walked as a man in great 
 haste, hurrying, and now his pace was slow, un- 
 certain. 
 
 And so he went on, following the little path that 
 bordered the woods on one hand and the fields 
 on the other; went on until he neared the village 
 
 and then he stopped suddenly, and turned 
 about. Some one had called his name. 
 
 From the field, a man climbed over the fence 
 and came toward him. The man's face was 
 tanned and rugged, his form erect, and the sleeves 
 rolled back above the elbows displayed browned 
 and muscular forearms. Madison stared at the 
 man apathetically. This was the farm of course 
 where Pale Face Harry boarded, and this was 
 Pale Face Harry but 
 
 " Doc," said Pale Face Harry, and he shuffled
 
 250 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 his feet and looked down, " Doc, I got something 
 I've been wanting to say to you for a week." 
 
 Madison still gazed at him apathetically 
 Pale Face Harry for the moment was as some un- 
 warrantable apparition suddenly appearing before 
 him. 
 
 Pale Face Harry raised his eyes, lowered them, 
 kicked at a clod of earth with the toe of his boot 
 and raised his eyes again. 
 
 " Say," he blurted out, " I'm through, Doc. 
 I'm I'm going to quit." 
 
 Into Madison's stumbling brain leaped and took 
 form but one idea and he jumped forward, 
 reaching savagely for Pale Face Harry's throat. 
 
 " You'd throw me, would you ! You'd throw 
 the game would you ! " he snarled, as his fin- 
 gers locked. 
 
 Pale Face Harry, twisting, wriggled free 
 and retreated a step. 
 
 " No; I ain't! " he gasped and then his sen- 
 tences came tumbling out upon each other jerkily, 
 as though he were trying to compress what he 
 had to say into as few words as possible and as 
 quickly as he could, while he watched Madison 
 warily. " I ain't throwing nothing. I just want 
 to quit myself. I keeps my mouth shut see? 
 I don't want none of the share what's coming. 
 Say, I've got more'n a hundred times that out of 
 it. Look at me, Doc! Say, I'm like a horse. 
 That's the Patriarch and living honest. Say, in 
 all me life I never knew what it was before till 
 we comes here. If I took the dough what's com-
 
 THE SPOILS 251 
 
 ing I'd go back to the old hell, and I'd go down 
 and out again. Say, it ain't worth it, there's noth- 
 ing in it. I ain't throwing you, Doc I just 
 blows out of here with me trap closed. Say, look 
 at me, Doc don't you get what I mean?" 
 : And then Madison burst into a peal of wild, 
 strange laughter; and, as though no man stood be- 
 fore him, started on along the path and Pale 
 Face Harry sidled out of his way and stared after 
 him. 
 
 " For for God's sake, Doc," he called out, 
 stammering, " what's the matter? " 
 
 But Madison made no answer. He heard Pale 
 Face Harry call out behind him; in a subconscious, 
 mazed way, he sensed the other following him, 
 gropingly, hesitantly, for a few yards, then hold 
 back and finally stop. 
 
 The path swerved. Madison went on 
 blindly, mechanically, as though, once set in mo- 
 tion, he must go on. Some ghastly, unnatural 
 thing was clogging his brain ; not only in a mental 
 way, but clogging it until there was physical hurt 
 and pain, an awful tightness something if 
 he could only reach it with his fingers and claw it 
 away! There was black madness here, and a 
 pain insufferable a damnable impotence, rob- 
 bing him of even the power, the faculty to think 
 or reason, or to make himself understand in any 
 logical degree the meaning or the cause of this 
 thing that sent his brain swirling sick. 
 
 He halted. His lips were working; the muscles 
 of his face quivered. And suddenly, snatching his
 
 252 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 hat from his head, he flung himself on the ground 
 and plunged face and head, feverishly, tigerishly, 
 into the little brook that ran beside the path. 
 Again and again he buried his face in the cold, 
 clear, refreshing water and then, still on hands 
 and knees, he raised his head to listen. Softly, 
 full of a great peace, full of a strange sweetness 
 that knew no discord, no strife, the notes of the 
 ciu,pel bell floated across the fields. Evening had 
 come; the day's work was done it was benedic- 
 tion time. It was the call of the faithful the 
 Angelus of those who believed. 
 
 It came, the revulsion, to Madison in a choked 
 sob and he stood up. The day's work was 
 done here. Here they would go in quiet 
 thankfulness each from the farm to his little cot- 
 tage, each to his simple, wholesome meal, each 
 to the twilight hours of gentle communion as they 
 talked to one another from their doorways, each 
 to his bed and his rest, tranquil in the love of God 
 and of man. 
 
 Madison flung back the dripping hair from his 
 forehead. Strange, the contrast that, unbidden, 
 came insistently to him now : The liquid notes of 
 the bell wafted sweetly on the evening breeze; 
 the howling, jangling turmoil of the city slums, of 
 his familiar haunts where, in mad chaos, reigned 
 the hawkers' cries, the thunder of the elevated 
 trains, the noisome traffic of the street, the raucous 
 clang of trolley bells the sweet perfume of the 
 fields, the smell of trees, of earth, of all of God's 
 pure things untouched, unsoiled; the stench of
 
 THE SPOILS 253 
 
 Chatham Square, the reek of whiskey spilled with 
 the breath of obscene, filthy lips the little vil- 
 lage that he could see beyond him, the tiny curls 
 of blue smoke rising like the incense from an altar 
 over the roofs of houses whose doors had no 
 locks, whose windows were not barred, where 
 plain, homely folk, unsullied, lived at peace with 
 God and the world; the closed areaways of the 
 Bowery, the creaking stairs, the dim hallways 
 leading to dens of vileness and iniquity where, 
 safe by bolts from interruption, crime bred its 
 offsprings and vice was hatched. What did it 
 mean! 
 
 And so he stood there for a little space; then 
 presently he started forward again ; and presently 
 lie reached the village street, walked down its 
 length, greeted from every doorway with hearty, 
 unaffected sincerity, and after a little while he 
 came to the hotel, and to his room and there 
 he locked the door. 
 
 Helena was straight the words were repeat- 
 ing themselves over and over in his brain. He 
 began to pace up and down the room. The words 
 seemed to take form and shape in fiery red letters, 
 being scrawled by invisible hands upon the walls 
 Helena was straight. Straight with Thornton, 
 straight with any man straight with her Maker. 
 He knew that now he had read it as a soul- 
 truth in those brave, deep, tear-dimmed eyes. 
 And he had lost her! It seemed as though he 
 had become suddenly conscious that he was en- 
 during some agony that was never to know an
 
 254 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 end, that from now on must be with him always. 
 He had lost her lost Helena. 
 
 From his pocket he drew out his keys and 
 opened his trunks, and took out the trays and 
 spread them about. There were very many trays, 
 they nested one upon the other and they were 
 exceedingly ingenious trays false-bottomed 
 every one. And now he opened these false-bot- 
 toms, every one of them, and stood and looked at 
 them. The surest, safest, biggest game he had 
 ever played, the game that had known no single 
 hitch, the game that had brought no whispering 
 breath of suspicion flung its tribute in his face. 
 Money that he had never tried to count, notes of 
 all denominations, large and small, glutted the 
 receptacles jewels in necklaces, in rings, in 
 pendants, in brooches, in bracelets, diamonds, ru- 
 bies, emeralds, winked at him and scintillated and 
 glowed and were afire. 
 
 And he stood and looked upon them. What 
 was it the Flopper had said when they had brought 
 the Patriarch back he did not remember. 
 What was it that Pale Face Harry had said a lit- 
 tle while ago he did not remember. These 
 were jewels here and money wealth and he 
 had won the greatest game that was ever played 
 only he had lost her lost Helena. And he 
 stood and looked upon them and slowly there 
 crept to his face a white-lipped smile. 
 
 "I'm beat!" he whispered hoarsely. "Beat 
 by the game ?- 1 won."
 
 FACE VALUE 
 
 IT was evening of the same day and there 
 came a knock at the outer door of the cot- 
 tage porch. 
 The Flopper answered it, and came back 
 to the Patriarch's room; where the Patriarch 
 sat in his armchair; where the lamp, turned low, 
 throwing the little room into half shadow, burned 
 upon the table ; where Helena, far away from her 
 immediate surroundings, quite silent and still, her 
 own chair close beside the other's, nestled with, 
 her head on the Patriarch's shoulder. 
 
 Helena looked up as the Flopper returned. 
 
 Upon the Flopper's face was a curious expres- 
 sion not one that in the days gone by had been 
 habitual it seemed to mingle a diffidence, a 
 kindly solicitude and a sort of anxious responsi- 
 bility. 
 
 " It's Thornton askin' fer youse," announced 
 the Flopper. 
 
 Helena rose from her chair, and started for 
 the door but the Flopper blocked the way. 
 Helena halted and looked at him in astonishment. 
 
 The Flopper licked his lips. 
 
 " Say, Helena," he said earnestly, " if I was 
 255
 
 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 youse I wouldn't go say, I'll tell him youse 
 have got de pip an' gone ter bed." 
 
 "Not go?" echoed Helena. "What do you 
 mean?" 
 
 The Flopper scratched at his chin uneasily. 
 
 "Oh, you know!" he said. " De Doc let 
 youse down easy ter-day. Say, if youse had piped 
 his lamps when you drives up in de buzz-wagon 
 dis afternoon youse wouldn't be lookin' fer any 
 more trouble. Say, I'm tellin' youse straight, 
 Helena. When I was out dere in de kitchen an' 
 youse was in yer room wid him me heart was in 
 me mouth all de time. Youse can take it from 
 me, Helena, he let youse down easy." 
 
 Helena's brown eyes, a little wistfully, a little 
 Softly, held upon the Flopper. 
 1 Yes?" she said quietly. 
 
 ** Youse had better cut it out ter-night, Helena," 
 the Flopper went on. " Y'oughter know de Doc 
 by dis time de guy dat starts anything wid de 
 Doc gets his dat's all ! Remember de night 
 he threw Cleggy down de stairs in de Roost? 
 an* he was only havin' fun ! Say, you go out wid 
 Thornton again ter-night an' de Doc finds it out 
 an' something'll happen. Say, Helena, fer 
 Clod's sake, don't youse do it de Doc was bad 
 enough dis afternoon when he let youse down easy, 
 but he's worse now, an' " 
 
 " Worse ? " Helena interrupted, smiling a lit- 
 tle apathetically. " In what way is he worse ? 
 JAnd how do you know? You haven't seen Doc, 
 have you ? "
 
 FACE YALUE 
 
 " No," the Flopper answered, circling his lips 
 with his tongue again. " No ; I ain't seen de Doc 
 since but I seen Pale Face. Say, Helena " < 
 the Flopper's words came stumbling out now, agi- 
 tated, perturbed, not altogether coherent r * 
 " wot's de answer I dunno ; I dunno wot's de 
 matter here. Say " he pointed suddenly to the 
 Patriarch, whose face was turned toward then* 
 as he stroked thoughtfully at his silver beard ^ 
 *' he's got me fer fair dere ain't no fake here 
 < dis way ter live is de real t'ing he ain't like 
 you an' me he's more'n dat look at him now 
 youse'd t'ink he could see us, an' was listenin' 
 ter wot we said. I dunno wot's de end I 
 dunno wot's de matter wid me. I was scared 
 more'n ever out dere dis afternoon on de lawn, 
 an' I thought mabbe God 'ud strike me dead 
 but 'tain't only dat I'm scared ter buck de game 
 any more, 'tain't only dat I don't wanter any 
 more, an' it don't make no difference about de 
 dough I wanter live straight, same as hirn^ 
 same as de guys around here, same same a 
 Mamie. Say, Helena, say, do youse believe in 
 love in in de real t'ing ? " 
 
 Helena's apathy was gone now a flush dyed 
 her cheeks. She was not startled at what the; 1 
 Flopper had said she had seen it coming, sub- 
 consciously, vaguely, mistily, for days now, onljf 
 she had been immersed in herself she was not 
 startled, and yet, in a way, she was. The end! 
 She too had been thinking about that * and shg 
 loo did not know. SVhat was. the end 2
 
 25.8 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 " You were going to say something about Pale 
 Face," she said, prompting the Flopper.. 
 " Something about Pale Face and Doc." 
 
 " Yes," said the Flopper, and again the tip o 
 his tongue sought his lips nervously. " Dat's 
 .why I don't want youse ter go out wid Thornton 
 ter-night; Pale Face has got it de same as me, 
 an' he told de Doc dis afternoon, out in de path 
 dere, after de Doc left de cottage here. Dere 
 was a showdown see ? De Doc 'ud kill youse 
 an' Thornton ter-night if he caught youse ter- 
 gether. He's like a wild man. When Pale Face 
 tells him he was goin' ter quit, de Doc makes a 
 grab fer him by de t'roat like a tiger, only Pale 
 Face gets away, an* den de Doc goes off widout a 
 word,, laughin* like he'd escaped out of a dippy- 
 house. An' Pale Face was shakin' like he had a 
 fit when he gets here., Say, Helena, don't yousQ 
 go ter-night." 
 
 Helena made no answer for a moment/ 
 [Thoughts, a world of them, confused'her, crowded 
 upon her, as they had ever since Madison had 
 left her room a few hours ago . and the futuraj 
 was as some dread, bewildering maze through 
 which she had tried to stumble and grope her way 
 s >and had lost herself ever deeper. How full 
 of utter, miserable, bitter irony it was that this 
 thing, unscrupulous and shameful, that they had 
 created in their guilt should have brought the 
 beauty and the glory and the yearning of a new 
 life to her and yet should chain her remorse
 
 FACE VALUE 259 
 
 lessly to the old! True, she had broken with 
 Madison, irrevocably, forever, she supposed, it 
 could not be other than that, for the ugly bond 
 between them was severed but the game still 
 went on! In repentance, on her bended knees, 
 sobbing as a tired and worn-out child, she could 
 ask for forgiveness; but the double life, the du- 
 plicity, by reason of the very nature in which they 
 had fashioned this iniquitous monster, still went on, 
 and like some hideous octopus reached out its 
 waving, feeling tentacles to encircle her the 
 Patriarch there; the world-wide publicity, those 
 poor creatures upon whose misery and whose suf- 
 fering, upon whose frantic, frenzied snatching 
 out at hope they had preyed and fed and gorged 
 themselves; the life itself that she had taken up, 
 in its minutiae, in its care of this great-souled, 
 great-hearted man so dear to her now, the life 
 itself because it was what it was, changed though 
 she herself might be, though her soul cried out 
 against it in its new-found purity all this still 
 held her fast 1 The end she could not see the 
 end. What would Madison do and there was 
 Thornton. Thornton ! She caught her breath a 
 little. Yes; she had promised Thornton she 
 would see him to-night she knew well enough 
 why he wanted to see her last night had told 
 her that he loved her. Her face softened. 
 Last night it seemed a thousand years ago, and 
 it seemed but as an instant passed last night > 
 she had learned what love was, and
 
 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 Tho Flopper stirred uneasily. 
 
 "Wot'll I tell him?" asked the Flopper. 
 ** He's waitin' out dere by de porch." 
 
 "Why why nothing," said Helena, and she 
 smiled a little tremulously at the Flopper. 
 " Nothing. I'll I'll go and see him." 
 
 " Say, Helena," protested the Flopper, " don't 
 youse " 
 
 But Helena stepped by him now. 
 
 " Don't leave the Patriarch," she cautioned, 
 turning on the threshold. "I I won't be late." 
 
 She passed down the little hall, through the 
 still, quiet room beyond, empty now, through the 
 porch, and out into the night and then from 
 out the shadows by the row of maples, Thornton 
 came hurriedly toward her, holding out his hands. 
 
 " It's good of you to come, Miss Vail," he said, 
 in his grave, quiet way. " You must be nearly 
 dead with weariness after last night, and I am 
 afraid I am not very thoughtful only I " he 
 broke off suddenly. " Shall we sit here on the 
 bench for a little while, or would you rather walk 
 I I have something to say to you." 
 
 It was very dark the storm of the night be- 
 fore still lingered in a wrack of flying clouds, 
 scurrying one after the other, veiling the stars 
 and the moon was hidden and hidden too was 
 the sudden whiteness of Helena's face. She 
 knew what he had to say, knew it before she had 
 come to him and yet she was there and she 
 had come resolutely enough only now she was 
 afraid.
 
 FACE VALUE 261 
 
 * I would rather walk a little, I think, 11 she said. 
 " Here where* where I can be within call. My 
 absence last night seems to have made the Patri- 
 arch very uneasy, you know, and and let us 
 just walk up and down here beneath the maples 
 in front of the cottage." 
 
 How heavy upon the air lay the fragrance of 
 the flowers; how still the night was, save for the 
 constant muffled boom of the breaking surf! 
 for a moment an almost ungovernable impulse 
 swept upon her to make some excuse, anything, 
 no matter how wild, a sudden faintness, anything, 
 and run from him back into the cottage. And 
 then she tried to think, think in a desperate sort 
 of way of some subject of conversation that she 
 might introduce that would stave off, postpone, 
 defer the words that she knew were even now on 
 his lips nothing she could think of nothing 
 only that she might have let the Flopper have 
 his way, have let him tell Thornton that she had 
 gone to bed with the pip. The pip! She 
 could have screamed out hysterically as the word 
 flashed all unbidden upon her it stood for a 
 very great deal that word her world of the; 
 years of yesterday. Could she never get away 
 from that world; was it too late < already! 
 Could she, even with all the earnestness, all the 
 yearning that filled her soul, ever live it down, 
 ever be what Naida Thornton had called her that 
 night a good woman ! Could she 
 
 Thornton was speaking now how strange 
 that she would have done anything, given
 
 262 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 thing to prevent his speaking and done any- 
 thing, given anything to make him speak! How 
 strange and perplexed and dismayed her brain 
 was ! Love ! Yes ; she wanted love ! God 
 knew she wanted love such as his was for he 
 had shown her what love, free from abasing pas- 
 sion, in its purest sense, was. Like a glimpse of 
 glory, hallowed, full of wondrous amazement, it 
 came to her and then her head was lowered, 
 and the whiteness was upon her face again. 
 
 He had halted suddenly and detained her with 
 his hand upon her arm with that touch, so full 
 of reverence, of fine deference, that had thrilled 
 her before that thrilled her now, awakening 
 into fuller life these new emotions whose birth 
 was in gladder, sweeter, purer aspirations. 
 
 " Miss Vail," he said, in a low voice, " there 
 was a letter a letter that Naida left did you 
 know of it? " 
 
 They were close together, and it was very dark 
 but was it dark enough to hide the crimson 
 that she felt sweeping in a flood to her face ! 
 What was in that letter? Had Mrs. Thornton 
 written as she had talked, or only about the Pa- 
 triarch and the work in Needley? She had for- 
 gotten for the moment about the letter if there 
 were more in it than that, if it were about Thorn- 
 ton and herself and what Mrs. Thornton had 
 hoped for between them, and she admitted knowl- 
 edge of it, what would he think, what could he 
 think of her! But to deny it no, not now. 
 Once, and this came to her in a little thrill of
 
 FACE VALUE 263 
 
 gladness, she would not have hesitated; but now 
 it it was = it was not that world of yester- 
 day. 
 
 "Yes," she said faintly; "she told me that 
 she had left a letter for you." 
 
 " If was about the work here," said Thornton 
 gently. " Her whole soul seemed wrapt up in 
 that and she asked me as her last wish to do 
 what she would have done if she had lived; and 
 she spoke of you very beautifully." Thornton 
 paused for a moment then he laid his hands on 
 Helena's shoulders and she felt them tremble 
 a little. "Miss Vail Helena," he said, and 
 his voice was full of passionate earnestness now, 
 "I cannot say these things well only simply. 
 I came back here to take an interest in the work, 
 for I too have it at heart but I have more than 
 that now there is you your dear self. I 
 love you, Helena you have come into my life 
 until you are everything and all to me. Helena, 
 look up at me will you marry me, dear? Tell 
 me what I long to hear. Helena, Helena I 
 love you ! " 
 
 But Helena did not answer only very slowly 
 she raised her head. And his hands on her shoul- 
 ders tightened, and he was drawing her gently 
 toward him. Then he bent his head until it was 
 close to hers, and his breath was upon her cheek 
 as it had been that other night and the longing 
 to know that it was hers, a caress, pure in its 
 motive, hers, snatched out of all that had gone 
 before that sought to rob her of the right to ever
 
 264 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 know it, fascinated her, held her spellbound, pos- 
 sessed her. Closer his lips came to hers, closer, 
 until they touched her and then, with a cry, she 
 sprang back, and her hands were fiercely pressed 
 against her cheeks, her throbbing temples. Was 
 she mad! Mad! Was it for this that she had 
 forced herself to give him the opportunity to speak 
 to-night, when her motive was so different, when 
 it had seemed the only right thing left for her 
 to do! 
 
 And now, still holding her temples, she raised 
 her eyes to Thornton he had stepped back 
 like a man stricken, his hands dropped to his 
 sides. 
 
 "I we are mad ! " she whispered. 
 
 "Helena!" he said in a numbed way; and 
 again: "Helena!" Then, with an effort to 
 control his voice : " You you do not care 
 you do not love me? " 
 
 "No," she said and thereafter for a long 
 time a silence held between them. 
 
 Then Thornton spoke. 
 
 " Some day perhaps, Helena," he said, " you 
 could learn to love me for I would teach you. 
 Perhaps now you feel that your whole duty lies 
 here in this work to which you have so unselfishly 
 given your life ; but I would not hinder that, only 
 try to help as best I could. Perhaps I have been 
 abrupt, have spoken too soon it is only a few 
 weeks since I saw you first, but it seems as though 
 in those few weeks I had come to know you as 
 if I had known you all my life and "
 
 FACE VALUE 265 
 
 But now she Interrupted him, shaking her head 
 in a sad little fashion. 
 
 * You do not know me," she said. " Some- 
 times I think I do not know myself. Think! 
 You do not know where I came from to join the 
 Patriarch here ; you have no single shred of knowl- 
 edge about me; you do not know a single partic- 
 ular of my life before you knew me." 
 
 " I do not need to know," he answered gravely. 
 ' You are as genuine as pure gold is genuine 
 it is in your voice, your smile, your eyes. It is a 
 crude simile perhaps, but one never asks where 
 the pure gold was dug it stands for itself, for 
 what it is, because it is what it is pure gold 
 ' at its face value." 
 
 The words seemed to stab at Helena, con- 
 demning, accusing; and yet, too, in a strange, 
 vague way, they seemed to bring her a hope, a 
 promise for the days to come at face value ! 
 If she could live hereafter at face value! 
 
 " Listen," she said, and her voice was very- 
 low. " I do not know how to say what I must 
 say to you. Last night I knew that that you 
 loved me. I had not thought of you like that, in 
 that way, until then, or or I should have tried 
 never to have let this hurt come to you. But last 
 night I knew, and since then I have known that 
 sooner or later you would would tell me of 
 it." She stopped for an instant her eyes full 
 of tears now. " And so," she went on presently, 
 " I have let you speak to-night because it was 
 better, it was even necessary that I should do so
 
 166 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 at once because this could not go on because 
 you must go away and " 
 
 "Necessary?" he repeated. "I I do not 
 understand." 
 
 "No," she said helplessly; "you do not un- 
 derstand and I I cannot explain. Oh, I do 
 not know what to say to you, only that you must 
 take what I say, as you have taken me at face 
 value." 
 
 " I do not understand," he said again. " Hel- 
 ena, I do not understand. Are you in trouble 
 tell me?" 
 
 " No," she said. 
 
 " But I cannot go away like this ! " he cried 
 out suddenly. " I cannot go and leave you, Hel- 
 ena. You have come into my life and filled it; 
 and I cannot let you pass out of it like this 
 without an effort to hold what has come to mean 
 everything to me now. You may not love me 
 now, but some day " 
 
 She shook her head, interrupting him once 
 more. 
 
 "There can never be a 'some day/' 1 she 
 said. " Oh, I do not want to hurt you you, to 
 whom I owe more than you will ever know 
 but but there can never be anything between 
 us, and and we are only making it harder for 
 ourselves now aren't we? " 
 
 And then he leaned abruptly toward her. 
 
 "Is there some one else?" he asked in a 
 strained voice. 
 
 And to Helena the question came as though
 
 FACE .VALUE 267 
 
 it had been an inspiration given him for after 
 that he would ask no more, seek no more to un- 
 derstand, for he was too big and strong and fine 
 for that; and even if it was hopeless now this 
 love that she had known for Madison, even if it 
 could never be again, still that love was hers, and 
 she could answer truthfully. 
 
 ' Yes," she said beneath her breath'. 
 
 For a moment Thornton neither moved nor 
 spoke. Then he held out his hand. 
 
 " Miss Vail," he said simply, " will you tell 
 this ' some one else ' that another man beside him- 
 self is the better for having known you. Good- 
 night. And may God bring you happiness 
 through all your life." 
 
 But she did not speak they were standing 
 by the rustic bench and she sank down upon it, 
 and, with her head hidden in one arm outflung 
 across the back of the seat, was sobbing softly. 
 
 And he stood and watched her for a little space, 
 his face grave and white; then taking the hand 
 that lay listlessly in her lap, he raised it to his 
 lips and turned away. 
 
 And so he left her and so, because of this, 
 he knocked upon another door that night, and all 
 unwittingly gave to that " some one else " himself 
 the message that he had asked Helena to deliver. 
 
 Madison, pacing his room like a caged beast, 
 his teeth working upon the cigar that he had never 
 thought to light, paid no attention to the summons 
 until it had been repeated twice; then, with a 
 glance around the room, his eyes lingering for a
 
 z66 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 at once because this could not go on because 
 you must go away and " 
 
 " Necessary? " he repeated. "I I do not 
 understand." 
 
 "No," she said helplessly; "you do not un- 
 derstand and I I cannot explain. Oh, I do 
 not know what to say to you, only that you must 
 take what I say, as you have taken me at face 
 value." 
 
 " I do not understand," he said again. " Hel- 
 ena, I do not understand. Are you in trouble 
 tell me?" 
 
 " No," she said. 
 
 " But I cannot go away like this ! " he cried 
 out suddenly. " I cannot go and leave you, Hel- 
 ena. You have come into my life and filled it; 
 and I cannot let you pass out of it like this 
 without an effort to hold what has come to mean 
 everything to me now. You may not love me 
 now, but some day " 
 
 She shook her head, interrupting him once 
 more. 
 
 "There can never be a 'some day/' she 
 said. " Oh, I do not want to hurt you you, to 
 whom I owe more than you will ever know 
 but but there can never be anything between 
 us, and and we are only making it harder for 
 ourselves now aren't we? " 
 
 And then he leaned abruptly toward her. 
 
 "Is there some one else?" he asked in a 
 strained voice. 
 
 And to Helena the question came as though
 
 FACE VALUE 267 
 
 it had been, an inspiration given him for after 
 that he would ask no more, seek no more to un- 
 derstand, for he was too big and strong and fine 
 for that; and even if it was hopeless now this 
 love that she had known for Madison, even if it 
 could never be again, still that love was hers, and 
 she could answer truthfully. 
 
 ' Yes," she said beneath her breath'. 
 
 For a moment Thornton neither moved nor 
 spoke. Then he held out his hand. 
 
 *' Miss Vail," he said simply, " will you tell 
 this * some one else ' that another man beside him- 
 self is the better for having known you. Good- 
 night. And may God bring you happiness 
 through all your life." 
 
 But she did not speak they were standing 
 by the rustic bench and she sank down upon it, 
 and, with her head hidden in one arm outflung 
 across the back of the seat, was sobbing softly. 
 
 And he stood and watched her for a little space, 
 his face grave and white; then taking the hand 
 that lay listlessly in her lap, he raised it to his 
 lips and turned away. 
 
 And so he left her and so, because of this, 
 he knocked upon another door that night, and all 
 unwittingly gave to that " some one else " himself 
 the message that he had asked Helena to deliver. 
 
 Madison, pacing his room like a caged beast, 
 his teeth working upon the cigar that he had never 
 thought to light, paid no attention to the summons 
 until it had been repeated twice; then, with a 
 glance around the room, his eyes lingering for a
 
 268 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 critical instant upon the trunks, closed now, the 
 trays restored to their hiding places, he stepped to 
 the door, unlocked it, and flung it open. And 
 at sight of Thornton, mechanically, as second 1 
 nature to him, outwardly, like a mask, there came 
 a smile upon his working lips, a suave, uncon- 
 cerned composure to his face; while inwardly, in 
 his dazed, fogged brain where chaos raged, surged 
 an impulse to fling himself upon the other, wreck 
 a mad vengeance upon the man and then swift 
 upon the heels of this an impulse to refrain, for 
 if Helena was straight why should he harm 
 Thornton and then the shuttle again why 
 should he not hadn't Helena said that she had 
 learned what love was last night and last night 
 she had been with Thornton. How his brain 
 whirled ! What had brought Thornton here, any- 
 how? If he stayed very long perhaps he would 
 batter Thornton to jelly after all! Quick, almost 
 instantaneous in their sequence came this wild 
 jumble singing dizzily its crazy refrain through 
 his mind and then to his amazement he heard 
 some one speaking pleasantly and to his amaze- 
 ment it was himself. 
 
 " Come in, Thornton. Come in and take a 
 chair." 
 
 "Thanks," Thornton answered; and, entering 
 the room, closed the door behind him. "No; I 
 won't sit down I shall only remain a moment." 
 
 The lamp was on the washstand, and, intu- 
 itively again, Madison shifted his position to 
 bring his face into shadow and leaned against
 
 FACE VALUE 269 
 
 the foot of the bed. He stared at Thornton, 
 nodding Thornton's face was white and exceed- 
 ingly haggard rather curious for Thornton to 
 look that way ! 
 
 " Madison," said Thornton abruptly, " I be- 
 lieve you to be a gentleman in the best sense of 
 the word, and because of that, and because of the 
 unusual circumstances that first brought us to- 
 gether and the mutual interests that have since 
 been ours, I have come to you to-night to tell 
 you, first, that I am going away from Needley and 
 that I shall not return and then to ask a service 
 and repose a trust in you. You have said several 
 times that you intended to remain here and take 
 a personal and active part in the work? " 
 
 Madison removed the chewed cigar end from 
 one corner of his mouth and placed it in the 
 other. 
 
 " Yes," said Madison. 
 
 " Then this is what I want to say," said Thorn- 
 ton seriously. " For my own sake, because it 
 was my wife's wish, and for other reasons as well, 
 my interest here, though I am going away, will 
 be just as great as it has ever been; and so I want 
 you to keep me thoroughly posted, and when the 
 time comes that I can be of further material as- 
 sistance to let me know. I impose only one con- 
 dition you are to say nothing to Miss Vail 
 about it you can make anything that I may 
 do appear to come from yourself." 
 
 " Say nothing to Miss Vail ! " repeated Madi- 
 son vaguely then a sort of ironic jest seemed to
 
 270 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 take possession of him : " But Miss Vail keeps all 
 the funds." 
 
 " That is why I am asking you to represent 
 me," said Thornton quietly. " I am afraid that 
 she might have a natural diffidence about accept- 
 ing anything more from me I asked Miss Vail 
 to marry me to-night, and she refused." 
 
 The cigar kind of slid down unnoticed from the 
 corner of Madison's mouth and he leaned for- 
 ward, hanging with a hand behind him to the 
 bedpost and stared at Thornton. 
 
 " You what! " he gasped. 
 
 "Yes; I know," Thornton answered and 
 moved abruptly toward the door. " Love makes 
 one's temerity very great doesn't it? I asked 
 her to marry me because I loved her." He 
 came back from the door and held out his hand. 
 " I've told you what I would tell no other man, 
 Madison. You understand now why and 
 you'll do this for me ? " 
 
 What answer Madison made he never knew 
 himself he only knew that he was staring at 
 the door after Thornton had gone out, and that 
 he wanted to laugh crazily. Marry Helena ! 
 Thornton had asked Helena to marry him because 
 he loved her. God, there was humor here ! His 
 brain itself seemed to cackle at it marry Hel- 
 ena ! 
 
 And then suddenly there seemed no humor at 
 all only black, infamous shame and condemna- 
 tion and he straightened up from where he
 
 FACE VALUE 271 
 
 leaned against the bedpost, his face set and 1 
 strained. 
 
 " Thornton had asked Helena to marry him 
 because he loved her " the words came slowly, 
 haltingly, aloud and then he covered his face 
 with his hands. But he, he who loved her too 
 had he done!
 
 
 
 XXII 
 
 THE SHRINE 
 
 FOR a little time Madison stood there in 
 his room, motionless, staring unsee- 
 ingly before him and then, as one 
 awakening from a dream that had 
 brought dismay and a torment too realistic to be 
 thrown from him on the instant, his brain still 
 a little blunted, he took up his hat mechanically, 
 went out from the room, descended by the back 
 stairs to the rear door of the hotel, and took the 
 road to the Patriarch's cottage. 
 
 And as he walked in the freshness of the night, 
 the restless turmoil of his soul that since early 
 afternoon had brought him near to the verge of 
 madness itself, that had robbed him of sane viril- 
 ity, that a moment since in his room had suddenly 
 begun to lift from him even as the leaden clouds 
 in the vault above him now were scattering, break- 
 ing, and through the rifts a moon-glint and the 
 starlight came, passed from him utterly and a 
 strange calm, a strange joy, a strange sadness was 
 upon him and his brain for the first time in 
 many hours was rational, keen and he was mas- 
 ter of himself again and yet master of himself 
 no more! 
 
 272
 
 THE SHRINE 27$ 
 
 He smiled a little at the seeming paradox 
 smiled a little wistfully. He was beaten by: 
 the game he had won. How strange it was 
 that sense of more than resignation now a sense 
 that seemed like one of thankfulness a, 
 sense that bade him fling wide his arms as though 
 suddenly they had been loosed from bondage and 
 he was free, free as the God-given air around him. 
 
 He could understand Helena, and the Flopper, 
 and Pale Face Harry now. With them it had 
 come slowly, in a gradual concatenation, a pro- 
 gression, as it were, that had worked upon them, 
 molding them, changing them day by day and 
 he had been too blind to see, or, seeing, had 
 measured the changes only by a standard as false 
 as all his life had been false. With him it had 
 come in a crash, unheralded, that had left him a 
 naked, quivering, stricken thing to know madness, 
 terror and despair, to taste of emotions that had 
 sickened the soul itself. 
 
 On Madison walked along the road, across 
 the little bridge, into the wagon track where, un- 
 der the arched branches, it was utter dark. There 
 was no one upon the road he passed no one 
 saw no one he was alone. 
 
 He had lost Helena but he understood her 
 now understood the depth of remorse that she 
 was living through, the terror and the dread as 
 she sought escape, the fear of him yes, it would 
 be fear now where once it had been love! He 
 had lost Helena that was the price he had 
 paid but he understood her now, and he was
 
 274 THE MIRACLE MAX 
 
 going to her to help her if he could, going to tell 
 her that he, too, was changed as she was 
 changed. 
 
 His hands clenched suddenly. God, the mis- 
 ery, the hopelessness, the wreck and ruin that lay 
 at his door! And amends what amends could 
 he make it was too late for that ! How clearly 
 he saw now when it was too late! Her life 
 was a broken thing, robbed, stripped and de- 
 spoiled for all the years to come. Their love had 
 not been love she had given it its name 
 " passion, vice, lust, sin, degradation and misery 
 and shame." And then love had come to her, 
 into her life, love as God had meant love to be, 
 and she had learned what love was she had said 
 only that she might never know its fulness, only 
 that it might bring her added bitterness and added 
 sorrow! Thornton had asked her to marry him 
 that night and she had refused him because 
 the past, it must have been as a shuddering, hide- 
 ous phantom that the past had risen before her, 
 had left her no other thing to do but turn away. 
 It seemed he could see her see her bury her 
 face in her hands and 
 
 He stopped short in his walk. Was he 
 changed so much as this ! Did he care so much 
 that it was her happiness even with another 
 that counted most ! Yes ; it was true he w r as 
 changed indeed. And the change had brought 
 him too, it seemed, to learn what love was too 
 late. 
 
 He went forward again a little more slowly
 
 THE SHRINE 
 
 now; a sadness upon him, but, through the sad- 
 ness, an uplift from that new sense of freedom 
 that was as a balm, soothing him in the most 
 curious way. His had been a rude awakening 
 mind and body and soul had been torn asunder; 
 but he knew now, as he recalled the hours just 
 past when he had looked on fear, when the gamut 
 of human passion had raged over him, when he 
 had stood staggered and appalled before, yes, be- 
 fore his God, that he had come forth a new man. 
 And how strange had been the ending, how 
 strange and simple, and yet how significant, typi- 
 fying the broad, clean outlook on life, bringing 
 coherency to his tottering mind, had been those 
 words of Thornton's "because he loved her." 
 
 He had reached the end of the wagon track 
 now, and he walked across the lawn, his steps 
 noiseless on the velvet sward, and passed between 
 the maples; and the moon gleam for the flying 
 clouds, rear-guard of the routed storm, were flung 
 wide apart, dispersed fell upon a coiled and 
 huddled little figure all in white, that was quite 
 still and motionless upon the rustic seat beside 
 the porch. 
 
 She did not see him, did not hear him, until he 
 stood before her and called her name. 
 
 " Helena ! " he said unsteadily. " Helena ! " 
 
 She raised her head and looked at him; and 
 then she rose from the bench, and, still holding 
 to it by one hand, drew back a little. There was 
 no outcry, no startled action. Her dark eyes 
 played questioningly upon him and he could
 
 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 sec that they were wet with tears, and that the 
 face from out of which they looked was very 
 white. 
 
 "Why have you come back here to-night?" 
 she asked in a low tone; and then, suddenly, a 
 fear, a terror in her voice, as the Flopper's warn- 
 ing flashed upon her: ''Thornton you have 
 seen Thornton? " 
 
 ' Yes," he said, surprised a little that she 
 should know; " I saw Thornton a few minutes 
 ago." 
 
 She came toward him now and clutched his 
 arm. 
 
 ' What have you done ? " she cried tensely. 
 " Answer me 1 You you met him on your way 
 here?" 
 
 It was a moment before Madison replied. He 
 had schooled himself of course for more than this, 
 yet the words hurt that was why she had asked 
 for Thornton she was afraid that he had 
 harmed the man. 
 
 " No," he said; " I did not meet him. I think 
 you must have been longer here on that bench 
 than you imagined haven't you ? He came to 
 my room." 
 
 "Your room! What for? Tell me!" 
 
 Madison smiled with grave whimsicality. 
 
 '' To call me a gentleman and repose a trust." 
 
 She stepped back again, uncertainly. 
 
 " I do not know what you are talking about," 
 she said in a strained way. " And you are talk- 
 ing very strangely."
 
 THE SHRINE 277- 
 
 " Yes," he said. " Everything is strange to- 
 night. It is like a new world, and and I have 
 not found my way yet." 
 
 She drew back still further. 
 
 " Are you mad? " she whispered. 
 
 "No," he answered. "Not now that is 
 past." 
 
 She looked at him for a little time; and, her 
 hands joined before her, her fingers locked and 
 interlocked nervously. 
 
 " And and Thornton? " she asked, at last. 
 
 "It was a trust," said Madison slowly; "but 
 it was betrayed before it was given. He did not 
 know the game. He did not know what was 
 between you and me." 
 
 "No," she said and the word came almost 
 inaudibly. 
 
 " And so," he said, " I will tell you, for it 
 cannot matter now in any case. He told me that 
 he had asked you to marry him to-night *< and 
 that you had refused." 
 
 Madison paused, and swept his hand across his 
 forehead his voice somehow had suddenly 
 grown hoarse, beyond control. 
 
 " Yes," she said and reached again for the 
 back of the bench, supporting herself against it. 
 
 " He is going away," Madison continued; " and 
 he is to send more money here for the ' cause ' 
 when I ask for it only you are not to know, 
 because you might be diffident about taking it after 
 refusing him." 
 
 She stared at him numbly there was no sar-
 
 278 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 casm in his words; in his tones only a sort of 
 dreary monotony. She shivered a little how 
 cold it seemed ! She did not quite grasp his words 
 
 and yet she shrank from them. And then her 
 very soul seemed to cry out against them, to pit it- 
 self against their meaning, as their meaning surged 
 upon her. And unconsciously she drew herself 
 up, and the whiteness of her face fled before a 
 rush of color. 
 
 " Oh, the shame of it! " she burst out. " The 
 bitter shame of it! You shall not touch the 
 money do you hear! You shall not touch itl 
 I I thought that you had understood this after- 
 noon. I am glad then that you have come to- 
 night if I must say more to make you under- 
 stand. This is the end! I do not care what 
 happens the little I can do now to atone for 
 what I have done, I am going to do. The game 
 is at an end you shall not touch another cent 
 
 and everything that we have taken goes back 
 to those whom we have worse than robbed it 
 from! You hear you understand! I will cry 
 it out in the town street if there is no other way 
 
 but it shall stop it shall stop to-night" 
 she was panting, breathless, the little figure erect, 
 outraged, quivering and then suddenly the 
 shoulders seemed to droop, the lips to tremble, 
 and she was on her knees upon the grass beside the 
 bench, and sobbing as a child. 
 
 " Helena ! " Madison said hoarsely. " Hel- 
 ena ! Listen ! That is what I came for to-night 
 
 to find a way out for you, for us all, if I can."
 
 THE SHRINE 279 
 
 The passionate outburst passed -and she 
 was on her feet again, facing him. 
 
 "You are clever iclever! " she cried fiercely. 
 " But you shall not play with me you shall not 
 trick me I meant every word I said! " 
 
 But now Madison made no answer. The 
 moonlight bathed them both in its clear, white 
 radiance; and touched the sward, shading it to 
 softest green; and the trees limned out like fairy 
 things against the night; and the calm light flooded 
 the little cottage with its hidden walls where the 
 ivy and the creepers grew, and lingered over the 
 trellises to drink the fragrance of the flowers that 
 peeped out from their leafy beds. And upon 
 Madison's face crept slowly the anguish that was 
 in his soul until it was mirrored there until 
 unconsciously it answered her where words would 
 have been useless things. Like some white-robed, 
 sorrowing angel, she seemed, as she stood there 
 before him the brown eyes full of shadow, 
 troubled; the sweet face tear-splashed; the little 
 figure in its simple muslin frock, pitiful in its 
 brave defiance. And pure just God, how pure 
 she looked ! the brow stainless white under the 
 ,mass of dark, coiled hair; the perfect throat of 
 ivory. And and the misery that was in every 
 feature of her face, in every line of her poise 
 and he had brought her that he had brought 
 her to that and now when he loved her as 
 he might have loved her once and known her 
 love in return, when his heart cried out for her, 
 when she was all in life he cared for, she was
 
 2 So THE MIRACLJi MAN 
 
 gone from him, out of his life, and between them 
 was a barrier he could never pass a barrier of 
 his own raising. 
 
 And so he made no answer, for indeed he had 
 not heard her; but she was coming toward him 
 now, her hands outstretched in a wondering way, 
 wistfully, pleadingly, as though to hold back a 
 refutation that would change the dawning light 
 upon her face to dismay and grief again. 
 
 " It it is true," she faltered. " It has come 
 to you too this change, this new life that has 
 come to me. It is true I can see it in your 
 face." 
 
 ' Yes; it is true," he answered, in a low voice. 
 
 u Thank God! " she whispered and hid her 
 face in her hands and presently he heard her 
 sob again. 
 
 A tiny cloud edged the moon, and the light 
 faded, and it grew dark, and the darkness hid her; 
 then softly, timidly almost it seemed, the radiance 
 came creeping through the branches overhead 
 again and then he spoke. 
 
 " Helena," he said, steadying his voice with 
 an effort, " you spoke of atonement a little while 
 ago; but there is no atonement that I can make 
 to you ' nothing that I can do to change what 
 I would give my soul to change. I know what 
 it meant to you to send Thornton away to-night, 
 for I love you now as you love him I know 
 why you did it, and " 
 
 She was staring at him a little wildly her 
 hands pressed against her cheeks.
 
 THE SHRINE 281 
 
 "Love Thornton," she repeated in a sort 
 of wondering way, a long pause between the 
 words. 
 
 'Yes," he said gently; "I know. Have you 
 forgotten what you told me this afternoon? 
 that you had learned last night what love 
 was." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " I do not love Thornton," she said in a mono- 
 tone. " And yet it is true that through him I 
 learned what love was, what it could be don't 
 you understand? " 
 
 Understand! No; it seemed that he could 
 never understand! She did not love Thornton! 
 And then, as some fiery cordial, the words seemed 
 to whip through his veins, quickening the beat of 
 his heart into wild, tumultuous throbbing. Yes, 
 yes, he could understand it was true true 
 she did not love Thornton. 
 
 "Helena!" he cried and stretched out his 
 arms to her. " I thought, oh, God, I thought 
 that I had lost you Helena I " 
 
 But she did not move. 
 
 " What does it matter to you whether I 
 love Thornton or not? " she said dully. " Does 
 it change anything where you and I are con- 
 cerned does it change what I told you this 
 afternoon that I would not go back to 
 that." 
 
 " To that ! Ah, no ! " his voice rang dom- 
 inant, vibrant, triumphant now. " Helena, don't 
 you understand? We are to begin life again
 
 282 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 in a new way, the true way, the only way. Don't 
 you see I love you ! " 
 
 Still she did not move but there was a great 
 whiteness in her face, and in the whiteness a great 
 light. 
 
 "You mean?" her lips scarcely seemed to 
 form the words. 
 
 " Yes! " he cried. " Yes; to make a home for 
 you, to marry you if only you love me still, to 
 live in God's own sight and hold you as a sacred 
 gift Helena ! Helena ! " his arms went out 
 to her again, and the yearning in his soul was in 
 his voice to crush her to him, to hold her in 
 his arms, and hold her there where none should 
 take her from him, to shield and guard her 
 through the years to come, to live with her a life 
 that seemed to break now in a vista of gladness, 
 of glory, as the day-dawn breaks with its golden 
 rays of God-given promise the new life, per- 
 fect and pure and innocent because he loved 
 'her. " Helena ! Speak to me. Tell me that 
 it is not too late tell me that you love me 
 too." 
 
 And then her eyes were raised to his, and they 
 were wet but there was love-light and a won- 
 drous happiness shining through the tears. 
 
 "Helena!" he murmured brokenly and 
 swept her into his arms and kissed the eyelids, 
 lowered now, the hair, the white brow, the lips 
 kissed her, and held her there, her clinging 
 arms about his neck, her face half hidden on his 
 shoulder.
 
 THE SHRINK 283 
 
 And so for a space they stood there and 
 there were no words to say, only the song in their 
 hearts in deathless melody but after a little 
 time he held her from him, and lifted up her face 
 that he might look his fill upon it. 
 
 " Helena," he said, " I cannot understand it 
 all yet it is as though it were born out of th* 
 sin and the darkness and the blackness of what is 
 gone as though here at this Shrine that we 
 created in mockery and crime it was meant that 
 you and I should save each other for each other. 
 And yet this Shrine as we have made it is a thing 
 of guilt, and it has brought us all, you and I, and 
 Harry, and the Flopper to a new life." 
 
 She lay still for a moment in his arms then 
 her hand crept up and touched his forehead and 
 smoothed back his hair. 
 
 " I do not quite know how to say it," she said 
 a little timidly. " When you went away this aft* 
 ernoon, the Patriarch took me back into his room, 
 and and I knelt at his knees and after a 
 little while my mind seemed very calm and quiet 
 do you know what I mean ? And I tried to 
 think things out and understand. And it 
 seemed to come to me that there was a shrine 
 everywhere if we would only look for it that 
 God has put a shrine in every heart, only we are 
 so blind that every one can make their own 
 surroundings beautiful and good and true, no mat- 
 ter where they are, or how poor, or how rich 
 and if they live like that they must be good and 
 true themselves."
 
 284 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 "Yes," he said slowly; then, after a moment: 
 " And faith too is very much like that." 
 
 " Only some need a sign," she said. 
 
 There was silence again, while her hand crept 
 over his face and back to his forehead to smooth 
 his hair once more and then very gently she 
 slipped out of his arms. 
 
 " What are we to do about about everything 
 here?" she asked soberly. "We are forgetting 
 that in our own happiness. How are we going 
 to return the money that we have taken?" 
 
 " I don't know yet," he answered. " I haven't 
 thought much about it but we'll manage some- 
 how." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " I've thought a great deal about it since yes- 
 terday and I'm not so sure it is to be ' managed 
 somehow ' and the more I've thought the more 
 tangled and complicated it has become." 
 
 " Well, we'll untangle it to-morrow," said 
 Madison, with a smile, "and " 
 
 " No " she touched his sleeve. " To-night. 
 Let us do it now to-night. I should be so 
 happy then." 
 
 He smiled at her again, and drew her to him. 
 
 " But we ought to have Pale Face and the 
 Flopper too, don't you think so? " he said. 
 
 " Of course," she said; " and so we will. The 
 Flopper is here, and we can send him for Harry. 
 It's early yet not ten o'clock." 
 
 "All right," said Madison; "if you wish it. 
 We'll go in then and get the Flopper."
 
 THE SHRINE 285 
 
 And so they walked to the cottage door, and 
 into the porch but in the porch Madison held 
 her for a moment, and lifted up her face again 
 and looked into her eyes. 
 
 "My wife," he whispered and took her 
 in his arms.
 
 XXIII 
 
 THE WAY OUT 
 
 STRANGE scene indeed! Strange antith* 
 esis to that other night when these four 
 were gathered in that crime-reeked, sor- 
 did room at the Roost where Pale 
 Face Harry, gaunt, emaciated, coughed, and, 
 trembling, plunged a morphine needle in his arm; 
 where the Flopper, a wretched tatterdemalion 
 from the gutter, licked greedy lips and gloated 
 in his rascality; where Helena, flushed- faced, in- 
 haled her interminable cigarettes and dangled her 
 legs from the table edge; where Madison, suave, 
 flippant, so certain of his own infallibility, glory- 
 ing in his crooked masterpiece, laid the tribute 
 to genius at his own feet! 
 
 Strange scene! Strange antithesis indeed! It 
 was quiet here very still only the distant, 
 muffled boom of the pounding surf. And the 
 shrine-room, for the first time since its creation, 
 was locked against the night. It lay now in 
 shadow from the single lamp upon the table 
 and the light, where it fell in a shortened circle, 
 for the lamp itself had a little green paper shade, 
 was soft, subdued and mellow. 
 
 Where he had been wont to sit in the days 
 gone by, the Patriarch sat now in his armchair 
 
 286
 
 THE WAY OUT 287 
 
 by the empty fireplace in the shadow his 
 head turned in his strange, listening, attentive way 
 toward the table toward the four who were 
 grouped around it. There had been no one to 
 stay with him in his own room, and so Helena 
 had brought him there to play his silent part. 
 
 At the table, Pale Face Harry, bronzed and 
 rugged, clear-eyed, a robust figure from his clean 
 living, his months of the out-of-doors, traced the 
 grain of the wood on the table mechanically with 
 his finger nail, his face sober, perplexed; while the 
 Flopper, clear-eyed too, his face almost a hand- 
 some one in its bright alertness, now that it had 
 rounded out and the hard, premature lines were 
 gone, mirrored Pale Face Harry's perturbed ex- 
 pression, his eyes fixed anxiously on Madison op- 
 posite him; and Helena, sitting beside Madison, 
 was very quiet, her forehead wrinkled and pursed 
 up into little furrows, the brown eyes with a hint 
 of dismay and consternation lurking in their 
 depths, one hand stretched out to lay quite un- 
 consciously on Madison's sleeve and from the 
 sleeve to steal occasionally into Madison's hand. 
 
 Madison, his lips tight, pushed back his chair 
 suddenly they had been sitting there an hour. 
 
 " You were right, Helena," he said, with a 
 nervous laugh. " The more you try to figure it 
 out the worse it gets." 
 
 " Aw, say, Doc," pleaded the Flopper desper- 
 ately, " don't youse give it up youse have got 
 de head youse ain't never left us in a hole 
 yet."
 
 288 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 Madison looked at him, and smiled mirthlessly. 
 
 "My head!" he exclaimed bitterly. "I got 
 you into this, all of you but it will take more 
 than my head to get you out. If I could stand for 
 it myself, I'd do it but I can't without dragging 
 you in too we're too intimately mixed up. If 
 I said it was a deal of mine they'd ask where 
 Helena came from they'd ask where you came 
 from, Flopper. We're beaten beaten every 
 way we turn. The game has got us we haven't 
 a move. We played it to the limit, the slickest 
 swindle that was ever worked, and it worked till 
 there's more money than I've tried to count. And 
 then it changed us from thieves, from from 
 anything you like and now that we want to quit, 
 now that we want a chance to make good, it's 
 got us in its grip and we can't get away." He 
 flirted a bead of moisture from his forehead. 
 " My God, I don't know what to do 1 " he mut- 
 tered hoarsely. " It was easy enough to talk 
 about stopping this thing, about returning the 
 money but I can't see the way out." 
 
 No one answered him all were silent as 
 silent as the mute and venerable figure that sat, 
 listening attentively it seemed, in the armchair by 
 the fireplace. 
 
 Madison turned abruptly after a moment to 
 Pale Face Harry. 
 
 " You, Harry," he said, laying a hand on the 
 other's shoulder, " you're the only one of the 
 four that can walk out of it you don't show 
 in the center of the stage you go. You said
 
 THE WAY OUT 289 
 
 the old folks would cry over you twenty years 
 is a long time to stay away from the old folks 
 I I never knew mine. You go on back to the 
 little farm out there in the West where you said 
 you'd like to go, and and give the old people 
 'a hand for the years they've got left." 
 
 Pale Face Harry shook his head. 
 
 " God knows I'd like to," he said, choking a 
 little ; " that's what I counted on. God knows 
 I'd like to go out there and lead a decent life 
 but I don't go that way I don't crawl out and 
 leave you what's coming to you is coming to 
 
 me." 
 
 " That won't help us any, Harry," said Madi- 
 son softly, and his hand tightened in an eloquent 
 pressure on Pale Face Harry's shoulder. ' You 
 go and God bless you ! " 
 
 Again Pale Face Harry shook his head. 
 
 " No," he said. " I stick. If the game's got 
 you, it's got me too to the limit. There's no 
 use talking about that." 
 
 The Flopper licked his lips miserably. 
 
 "Swipe me!" he mumbled. "Hell wasn't 
 
 ! never like dis ! Me an' Mamie we've got it fixed, 
 
 1 an' her old man says he'll take me inter de store. 
 
 Say, Doc, say ain't dere a chanst ter live 
 
 straight now we wants ter? " 
 
 But Madison did not hear the Flopper save in 
 a vague, inconsequential way he was looking at 
 Helena. She had drooped forward a little over 
 the table, her chin in her hands, her lips quivering 
 and a white misery in her face seemed to bring
 
 290 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 a chill, a numbness to his heart. His hands 
 clenched, and he began to pace up and down the 
 room. 
 
 How buoyantly he had tackled the problem 
 buoyant in his own emancipation, buoyant in his 
 love, in the future full of dreams, full of inspira- 
 tion, full of the new life that Helena and he 
 would live together! How confidently he had 
 settled himself to undo in a moment the work of 
 months, to outline a mere matter of detail, with 
 never a thought that he was face to face with a 
 problem that he could never solve that brought 
 him to the realization that the game, not he, was 
 the master still, iron-handed, implacable that 
 though the mental chains were loosed it was but 
 as if, in ironic justice, in grim punishment, only 
 that he might look, clear-visioned, upon the ig- 
 nominy of the physical shackles he himself had 
 forged and fashioned so readily, whose breaking 
 now was beyond his strength. 
 
 He had done his work well! In the first few 
 moments, an hour ago, when he had begun to 
 consider the problem, as seeming difficulties arose, 
 he had turned coolly from one alternative to an- 
 other. And then slowly a sickening sense of the 
 truth had begun to dawn upon him and like a 
 man lost in a great forest, peril around him, 
 he had plunged then desperately in this direction 
 and in that, as a glimmering point of light here or 
 there had seemed to promise an avenue of escape 
 only to find it vanish at almost the first step, 
 the way closed as by some invisible, remorseless
 
 THE WAY OUT 291 
 
 power. No, not invisible it seemed to take 
 the form of the Patriarch for at every turn the 
 majestic figure stood and would not let him pass. 
 
 Madison's face was gray now as he walked up 
 and down the room there was his own revul- 
 sion, his abhorrence at the part he had played, a 
 frantic, honorable eagerness to be rid of it; there 
 were these others too who looked to him, the 
 Flopper and Pale Face Harry; and there was 
 Helena ! He did not dare to look at the misery 
 in her face again he was unmanned enough 
 now. 
 
 And then Helena spoke. 
 
 "It it seems," she said, in a low broken 
 way, " as if as if God did not want to pardon 
 us as if our repentance had come too late, and 
 that there was no Eleventh Hour for us." Then, 
 in passionate pleading, facing Madison: "God 
 cannot mean that it is we who cannot see. 
 There is some way out there must be there 
 must be." 
 
 " It begins and ends with the Patriarch," said 
 Madison monotonously. " We can't sacrifice 
 him can we! What's the use of going over it 
 again? It all comes back to the same point 
 the Patriarch." 
 
 " Yes, yes; I know, I know," she said piteously. 
 " But think, Doc think! See now, we just 
 send back all the money and jewels we know to 
 whom they belong." 
 
 "Well, what reason do we give?" Madison 
 said heavily. " The Patriarch is alive and well.
 
 292 THE MIRACLE MAN! 
 
 The immediate corollary is that from the moment 
 we do that, to-morrow morning for instance, every 
 gift, every offering here is suddenly refused. 
 What reason do we give? If it were only the 
 donors who were to be considered it might be 
 done. It's human nature that ninety-nine out of 
 every hundred of them " his voice rose a little 
 bitterly " would probably be only too glad to get 
 their money back and the mere statement that 
 you, as the Patriarch's grand-niece, his only rela- 
 tive, on mature thought did not consider the proj- 
 ect as planned advisable might suffice. But this 
 thing goes beyond that, beyond even the remaining 
 few who are earnestly interested and would cause 
 us trouble it is worldwide in its publicity ! 
 Every newspaper in the land would snatch at it for 
 a headline, and ask why? And they would not 
 be content with simply asking why this thing 
 is too big for that too much before the people's 
 eyes too good ' copy.' They'd start in to find 
 out and the result is inevitable. Our safety so 
 far has lain in the fact that there has been no sus- 
 picion aroused; but snooping around a bank vault 
 at midnight with a mask on and a bull's-eye lan- 
 tern fades to a whisper as a suspicion-arouser 
 compared with anybody willingly coughing up a 
 bunch of money once they've got their claws on it 
 and a yellow journal, let alone an army corps 
 of them, on the scent of a possible sensation has 
 all the detective bureaus in the country pinned to 
 the ropes they'd have us uncovered quicker 
 than I like to think about it and that means "
 
 THE WAY OUT 293 
 
 He stopped, and with a hurried motion carried 
 his hands across his eyes Helena, pure as one 
 of God's own angels now, to come to that, to come 
 to 
 
 It was the Flopper who completed the sentence. 
 
 " Ten spaces up de river," said the Flopper, 
 and shivered, and his tongue sought his lips ; " or 
 mabbe mabbe twenty." 
 
 Pale Face Harry stirred uneasily. 
 
 " There's the other way," he said without look- 
 ing up, his eyes on his finger nail that traced the 
 grain of the wood again. " Get the money and 
 the sparklers all done up and addressed to the 
 ones they came from, send 'em off in a bunch to 
 Thornton and we fly the coop before he gets 
 them, disappear, fade away and take our 
 chances of getting caught." 
 
 " An' den it's all off wid me an' Mamie " 
 the Flopper's face grew hard. " Nix on dat I 
 Cat don't go ! " 
 
 " We cannot do that, Harry," said Helena, in 
 a tired voice. " There is the Patriarch." 
 
 " Yes," said Madison, beginning his stride up 
 and down the room again. " After all, whether 
 we could give back the money without being 
 caught, or whether we couldn't, is not the vital 
 thing; there is the Patriarch." 
 
 Helena's eyes were on the silent figure in the 
 shadows by the fireplace. 
 
 "If if it were not for him," she said, "I 
 think that perhaps perhaps I might be brave 
 enough to confess it all, and and not try to es-
 
 294 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 cape from the punishment that I deserve. But he 
 would know he cannot see, nor hear, nor speak, 
 but he would know as he seems so strangely, 
 so wonderfully, so supernaturally to know and 
 understand everything. And, oh, he means so 
 much to me, to us all, for it is he, more than any 
 one else, who has saved us from from what we 
 were. And he loves us. It would shatter his 
 faith, ruin all that his life has meant to him, and 
 
 and we cannot bring him grief and sorrow like 
 that. Oh, what can we do ! What can we do ! 
 We cannot stop and we cannot go on ! We 
 cannot stay here even if we returned the money 
 successfully, and we cannot stay here if we kept it 
 as it is; for things would still have to go on as 
 they are, even if we didn't mean to steal any more, 
 no matter what we might say or do, for it's be- 
 yond our control now, and to stay means that we 
 should still have to live and lead our double lives, 
 still have to practise hypocrisy and deceit, and 
 and I cannot we cannot do that any more. 
 And the only way to get away from it all is to run 
 away and we can't do that, either! There is 
 
 the Patriarch. We cannot leave him to 
 break his heart with none he loves to care for 
 him. We can't do that. He is a very old, old 
 man, and and I think he has been happy with 
 us, and and we must make him happy always 
 as long as he lives. We cannot go away and leave 
 him. We can't do that." Then, in a heart- 
 broken, despairing cry : ' We can't do any- 
 thing! "
 
 THE WAY OUT 295 
 
 No one answered her. She had begged Mad- 
 ison to go over it all again and she had summed 
 it up herself. There was the Patriarch. 
 
 There was utter silence in the room now, save 
 only for that low, solemn boom of distant surf 
 for Madison had stopped his nervous pacing up 
 and down, and stood now by the Patriarch's arm- 
 chair gazing into the fireplace. 
 
 The minutes passed, and the silence in that dim, 
 shadowed room grew tense and tenser still 
 until the very shadows themselves, as the lamp 
 flickered now and then, seemed to creep and shift 
 and readjust themselves in stealth. No sound 
 no movement utter stillness only, from with- 
 out, the mourning of the surf, like a dirge now. 
 
 And then, with a sudden sob, Helena flung out 
 her arms across the table toward the Patriarch. 
 
 " Oh, if he could only speak! " she cried piti- 
 fully. " If he could only speak he would show 
 us the way out." 
 
 The words seemed to come to Madison as an 
 added pang. He turned his eyes instinctively 
 from the fireplace to the Patriarch beside him 
 and then, a moment, as a man stricken, he stood 
 there and then reaching quickly for the lamp 
 from the table he held it up, and leaned forward 
 toward the figure in the chair. 
 
 Helena, startled at the act, rose almost uncon- 
 sciously to her feet, her hands holding tightly to 
 the table edge looking at Madison, looking at 
 the silent form where Pale Face Harry, where the 
 Flopper looked.
 
 296 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 "What is it?" she asked tensely, under her 
 breath. 
 
 Madison's lips moved silently. His face 
 was white, ashen there was no color in it. 
 Then his lips moved once more. 
 
 '' The way out," he said; and again, in a low, 
 awed way: " The way out. We can make res- 
 titution now we can give it all back he has 
 shown us the way out." 
 
 Helena's lips were quivering, tears were dim- 
 ming the brown eyes, trembling on the lashes, as 
 she stepped now to Madison's side. 
 
 " It is God who has shown us the way out," she 
 whispered brokenly and dropping down before 
 the chair, her little form shaken with sobs, she hid 
 her face on the Patriarch's knees. 
 
 And serene and peaceful as a child in sleep, a 
 smile like a benediction on the saintly face, the 
 Patriarch sat in his armchair by the fireplace where 
 he had been wont to sit in years gone by and so 
 he had passed on. 
 
 The Patriarch was dead.
 
 I 
 
 VALE! 
 
 years have passed -but in their 
 passing have brought few changes to 
 the little village nestling in the Maine 
 pines that border on the sea. Not 
 many changes it is as though Time had touched 
 it loath to touch at all ; as though some spirit lin- 
 gering there, sweet and fresh and vernal, had bade 
 Time stay its hand. 
 
 Not many changes the same familiar faces 
 gather around the stove in the hotel office; and, 
 neither as a memory, nor yet as of one who has 
 gone, but as if he were amongst them, living still, 
 they speak of the Patriarch as of yore. 
 
 And with this little circle of kindly, simple folk 
 Time has dealt gently too, for there is only one 
 who is no more Cale Rodgers, the proprietor 
 of the general store. 
 
 But the general store on the village street still 
 flourishes, and in Cale Rodgers' place is one 
 whose speech is still a marvelous thing in staid old 
 New England ears it is an Irish brogue per- 
 haps, for his name is Michael Coogan. There 
 are little Coogans too, and Mamie is a happy wife. 
 
 297
 
 298 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 And to the Coogans come sometimes letters from 
 a far-western farm to say that things are well and 
 that prosperity has come to one who signs him- 
 self facetiously it always seems to Mamie who 
 reads the letters to her husband as Pale Face 
 Harry. 
 
 And so the years have passed, and it is summer 
 time again. The fields are green; the trees in 
 leaf; the flowers in bloom. And there are visit- 
 ors who have come again to the scenes of yester- 
 day a man and woman and between them a 
 sturdy little lad of eight. They stop at the end 
 of the wagon track and look out across the 
 lawn. 
 
 It is still and peaceful, tranquil - and to them 
 comes the soft, low murmur of the surf. Slowly 
 they walk across the lawn, and pass beneath the 
 splendid maples and pause again. 
 
 The cottage is like some poet's fancy, hidden 
 shyly in its creepers and its vines; and seems to 
 speak and breathe in its simple beauty of the gen- 
 tle soul who once had lived there and loved his 
 fellow-men. It is as it always was, open, free for 
 all to pass within who wish to enter; for loving 
 hands have cared for it, and grateful purses, op- 
 ened to its needs, have kept it as a Shrine. 
 
 But they do not enter now, for Madison points 
 to where the sunlight, as it glints through the trees 
 at the far end of the cottage, falls on a slender 
 shaft of marble. 
 
 " Let us go there, Helena," he said softly. 
 
 And so they walked that way, past the trellises
 
 VALE! 25? 
 
 laden with flowers, past the end of the cottage, 
 and presently they stopped again where, beneath 
 the maples' shade, rises the pure white stone 
 and beyond it is the sweep of the eternal sea. 
 
 Madison, his hair streaking just a little gray at 
 the temples now, removed his hat and his face 
 softened, saddened, as he read the simple inscrip- 
 tion : 
 
 THE PATRIARCH 
 
 The boy glanced at his father a little wonder- 
 ingly and then spelt out the words. He shook 
 his head. 
 
 " I don't know what that means," he said. 
 " What does that word mean? " 
 
 Madison patted his head. 
 
 "You tell him, Helena," he said and came 
 and stood beside her. 
 
 And so Helena told the boy in simple language 
 as much of the Patriarch's story as she thought 
 he could understand and when she had finished 
 the boy's face was aglow. 
 
 "And!" he said breathlessly, "and and 
 did he ever do a really, truly-truly miracle? " 
 
 There was silence for an instant then a ten- 
 der smile came trembling to Helena's lips, and 
 into the brown eyes crept the love-light, as she 
 reached out to Madison and her hand found 
 his and held it very tightly. 
 
 And Madison bent and kissed her; and drew the 
 little lad between them and laid his hand on the 
 boy's head, and answered for Helena.
 
 300 THE MIRACLE MAN 
 
 ' Yes, my son," he said; " and some day when 
 you are a man you will understand how great a 
 miracle it was 4 " 
 
 THE END
 
 STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY 
 
 GENE STRATTON-PORTER 
 
 May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Srocset & Dunlap't Itet. 
 
 MICHAEL O'HALLORAN. Illustrated by Frances Rogers. 
 
 Michael is a quick-witted little Irish newsboy, living in Northern 
 Indiana. He adopts a deserted little girl, a cripple. He also as- 
 sumes the responsibility of leading the entire rural community up- 
 ward and onward, 
 LADDIE. Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer. 
 
 This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid in Indiana. The 
 story is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family, 
 but it is concerned not so much with childish doings as with the love 
 affairs of older members of the family. Chief among them is that 
 of Laddie and the Princess, an English girl who has come to live in 
 the neighborhood and about whose family there hangs a mystery. 
 THE HARVESTER. Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs. 
 
 " The Harvester, " is a man of the woods and fields, and if the 
 book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man it would 
 be notable. But when the Girl comes to his " Medicine Woods," 
 there begins a romance of the rarest idyllic quality. 
 FRECKLES. Illustrated. 
 
 Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens,' but the way in ( 
 which he takes hold of life ; the nature friendships he forma in the 
 great Limberlost Swamp ; the manner in which everyone who meets 
 him succumbs to the charm of his engaging personality ; and big/ 
 love-story with " The Angel " are full of real sentiment, 
 A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST. Illustrated. 
 
 The story of a girl of the Michigan woods ; a buoyant, loveable ' 
 type of the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and 
 kindness towards all things ; her hope is never dimmed. And by 
 the sheer beauty of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from 
 barren and unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage. 
 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW. Illustrations in colors. 
 
 The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana, 
 The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing 
 love. The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of 
 nature, and its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all. 
 THE SONG OF THE CARDINAL. Profusely illustrated. 
 
 A love ideal of the Cardinal bird and hia mate, told with delicacy; 
 and humor. J 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
 
 KATHLEEN NORRIS' STORIES 
 
 May be had wherever boohs are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list 
 
 MOTHER. Ehistrated by F. C. Yohn. 
 
 This book has a fairy-story touch, counterbalanced by 
 the aturdy reality of struggle, sacrifice, and resulting peace 
 and power of a mother's experiences. 
 
 SATURDAY'S CHILD. 
 
 Frontispiece by F. Graham" Goo tes. 
 
 Out on the Pacific coast a normal girl, obscure and lovely; 
 makes a quest for happiness. She passes through three 
 stages poverty, wealth and service and works out a 
 creditable salvation. 
 
 THE RICH MRS. BURGOYNE. 
 Illustrated by Lucius H. Hitchcock. 
 
 The story of a sensible woman who' keeps within her 
 means, refuses to be swamped by social engagements, livB 
 a normal human life of varied interests, and has her own 
 romance. 
 
 THE STORY OF JULIA^PAGE. 
 
 Frontispiece by Allan Gilbert. 
 
 How Julia Page, reared in rather unpromising surround- 
 ings, lifted herself through sheer determination to a higher 
 plane of life. 
 
 THE HEART OF RACHAEL. 
 
 Frontispiece by Charles E. Chambers. 
 
 Rachael is called upon to solve many problems, and HI 
 working out these, there is shown the beauty and strength 
 of soul of one of fiction's most appealing characters. 
 
 Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction 
 
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