Page:Frank Packard - The Miracle Man.djvu/253

 eyes saw no sight. And upon Madison it fell potent, masterful, and passion fled, and in its place came a strange, groping response within him, a revulsion, a penitence—and he bowed his head.

And then Helena spoke—but her head was turned away from him, hidden on the Patriarch's breast.

"Once," she said, and her words were like broken whispers, for she was sobbing still, "once, long, long ago, when I was a little girl, I read the story of Mary Magdalen. I had almost forgotten it, it was so long ago, but it has come back to me, and—and it is a glad story—at the end."

She stopped—and Madison raised his head, and his face was strained as with some sudden wonder as he looked at her.

"It is a glad story," she said presently. "It—it is my story."

"You mean"—Madison's voice was hoarse—"you mean that you've turned—straight!"

"They love me here," she said. "They trust me and they think me good—as they are. All think me that—the little children and this dear man here—and for a little while, since I have been here, I have lived like that. They made me believe that it was true—true. And there was shame and agony—and hope. It seemed they could not all be wrong, and I have asked and prayed that I might make it true always—and—and forgiveness for what I was."

"You mean," he said again hoarsely, and he