“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 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 evidence of the miraculous, once more so vividly before 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 Patriarch, 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 shuffling awkwardly from foot to foot; Mrs. Holmes, 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.