“We’ll see about that when we find her”—­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 affectionate 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 Patriarch 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 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 matter, it’s just as well for the Flopper, for Pale Face Harry, for Helena and yours truly that he’s deaf and dumb—­and will be blind.”

Madison came back to the Patriarch with beaming 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, during my stay in Needley, look upon them in a little way as my own library?”

“You are very welcome indeed,” the Patriarch answered.

“Thank you,” wrote Madison.  “And now, surely, I must go”—­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 regards 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, Madison read the slate, wiped it carefully, laid it down, and then held out his hand.