MARTHA.

Is it against the law to work where he comes from?

MICHAELIS.

_Abstractedly._

What?--No.

MARTHA.

Then he might as well do me some ch.o.r.es. Not but right, payin' only half board.

MICHAELIS.

_To the boy._

Do whatever she tells you.

_The boy follows Martha out. Michaelis stands by the window in thought. As Rhoda reenters, he looks up. He speaks significantly, with suppressed excitement._

She saw the sun!

RHODA.

Poor dear Auntie!

MICHAELIS.

You pity her?

RHODA.

_After an instant's silence, during which she ponders her reply._

I think I envy her.

_She removes the cloth from the table, and begins deftly to put the room in order. Michaelis watches her with a kind of vague intentness._

MICHAELIS.

How long did you say she had been sick?

RHODA.

More than four years--nearly five.

MICHAELIS.

She has never walked in that time?

RHODA.

_Shakes her head._

Nor used her right hand, either.

MICHAELIS.

_With intensity._

Are you certain?

RHODA.

_Surprised at his tone._

Yes--I haven't lived here long, but I am certain.

MICHAELIS.

She has tried medicine, doctors?

RHODA.

Uncle has spent everything he could earn on them. She has been three times to the mineral baths, once as far as Virginia.

MICHAELIS.

But never as far as Bethesda.

RHODA.

Bethesda? Where is that?

MICHAELIS.

The pool, which is called Bethesda, having five porches.

RHODA.

Oh, yes. The pool in the Bible, where once a year an angel troubled the waters, and the sick and the lame and the blind gathered, hoping to be healed.

MICHAELIS.

And whoever first, after the troubling of the waters, stepped in, he was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.

RHODA.