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 cordially.

"Behold the amphitheater!" he said. "This is where we stage the greatest act of the century!"

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 window a light twinkled out between the tree trunks; while from beyond again came the roll of surf, low, rhythmic, like the soft accompaniment of orchestral music.

"Wonderful!" breathed Madison. "I feel," said he, "as though I had just had a drink!"

He walked across the lawn, pa.s.sed 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 perhaps 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 cottage, 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 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, transcending 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 glistening 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, sputtered, and now and then leaped cheerily into flame.

Between the table and the fire, half turned toward Madison, sat the Patriarch. He was reading, 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 collar--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, una.s.suming 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, lingering, 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 reality.

"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 _stealing_ 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 myself in the looking-gla.s.s."

He reached the cottage door, and, lifting the bra.s.s knocker that shone dimly in the darkness, 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 muttered. "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.

--V--

A STRANGE CONVERSATION

Madison, quite in command of himself 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 certainly 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 Patriarch, 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 moment, then his eyes shifted to the Patriarch, who was regarding him humorously.

The Patriarch rose from his chair, walked to 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 simple, 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 endors.e.m.e.nt, 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 replied: "Yes; that is my name--John Madison. It was good of Mr. Higgins to speak of me."

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 lowered 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 laboriously; 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 att.i.tude and expression were eloquent enough not only to be a perfect interpretation 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 impulsively:

"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 pa.s.sed from hand to hand quite rapidly.

"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 skeptical. 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 possible; with faith nothing is impossible."

Madison's gray eyes rested, magnificently thoughtful and troubled, upon the Patriarch.