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 in an impotent gesture—"we can only accept it unquestioningly, as a mighty thing, an actual, living, existent thing, even if we cannot fully understand. 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."

"You know them, don't you?" Thornton inquired.

Madison smiled, a little strangely, a little deprecatingly.

"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 immeasurable it was."

"Let us go to the cottage, then," said Thornton. "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