— XII —
SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY
BY the wheel-chair, Mrs. Thornton, her husband and Doc Madison were in earnest conversation—and around them was a mass of people. The crowd had divided into two, or, rather, was constantly coming and going between two points—young Holmes and Mrs. Thornton—and still the hysteria was upon men and women, still that wavering, moanlike sound floated over the lawn.
"I am stunned and stupified," Madison was saying, and his hand trembled visibly in its outflung gesture. "I am not, I am afraid, a man of deep sensibilities, but I cannot help feeling that I have been permitted, been chosen even, to witness this sight, a sight that will stay with me till I die, for some great, ulterior purpose. It's as though this place were hallowed, set apart; that here, if only one has faith, that man's miraculous power is boundless—that I should help someway. I—I'm afraid I don't explain myself well."
"I know what you mean," Mrs. Thornton returned eagerly. "It is what I was saying to my husband—to make this place known, to help to bring suffering people here."
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