The
villagers were kneeling there, too. They crowded in, leaving everything
else. You are their hero, and they were in deep earnest."
His look was gravely pondering. His life had not made a mystic of
him--it was Penzance who was the mystic--but he felt himself perplexed
by mysteriously suggestive thought.
"I was brought back--I was brought back," he said. "In the afternoon
I fell asleep and slept profoundly until the morning. When I awoke, I
realised that I was a remade man. The doctors were almost awed when I
first spoke to them. Old Dr. Fenwick died later, and, after I had
heard about it, the church bell was tolled. It was heard at Weaver's
farmhouse, and, as everybody had been excitedly waiting for the sound,
it conveyed but one idea to them--and the boy was sent racing across the
fields to Stornham village. Dearest! Dearest!" he exclaimed.
She had bowed her head and burst into passionate sobbing. Because she
was not of the women who wept, her moment's passion was strong and
bitter.
"It need not have been!" she shuddered. "One cannot bear it--because it
need not have been!"
"Stop your horse a moment," he said, reining in his own, while, with
burning eyes and swelling throat, he held and steadied her.
Pages:
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923