"What is it?" she asked tensely, under her breath.
Madison's lips moved—silently. His face was white, ashen—there was no color in it. Then his lips moved once more.
"The way out," he said; and again, in a low, awed way: "The way out. We can make restitution now—we can give it all back—he has shown us the way out."
Helena's lips were quivering, tears were dimming the brown eyes, trembling on the lashes, as she stepped now to Madison's side.
"It is God who has shown us the way out," she whispered brokenly—and dropping down before the chair, her little form shaken with sobs, she hid her face on the Patriarch's knees.
And serene and peaceful as a child in sleep, a smile like a benediction on the saintly face, the Patriarch sat in his armchair by the fireplace where he had been wont to sit in years gone by—and so he had passed on.
The Patriarch was dead.
