“But why, why?” demanded Garven. “This is a thing I do not understand at all.”
They told him the whole story, there seemed no reason for concealment. The older man heard it through in silence.
“We worked together years ago, Reynolds and I,” he said at the conclusion, “and he was the same as now, very ambitious, very tenacious of his purpose, but sometimes overwhelmed with such tempests of discouragement that he would wish to destroy all that he had done. He was worn out, I knew, his letter to me showed that, and he had a hard and a cruel blow. He has brought us to the edge of a very great discovery—and has left us there?”
“Is he so ill, Miss Reynolds, that he cannot be asked where the missing parts are?” questioned one of the other men. “Surely if he knew that his friend was here, he would want to have them produced. Could you not ask him?”
“He is half-conscious at times,” Miss Miranda answered doubtfully; “I might try.”
“I urge you to do so,” Garven said gravely. “What he has here, if it can be proved a success should mean a fortune to him, it should mean fame and, most of all, it should mean a great step forward in men’s knowledge. I think nothing should be left untried.”
Miss Miranda went out reluctantly; Betsey could hear her hesitating feet upon the stairs, could hear the door open above and the low sound of consultation with the nurse. There was a long pause. One man sat down, openly fidgeting and nervous, the other stood twisting and untwisting a piece of wire between his fingers. Garven was staring silently out through the window. David still stood by the machine, his back to the others, neither moving nor speaking. It was a long, tense wait for them all. It was because Dick had been banished for the afternoon, Betsey thought, that the workshop seemed so unnaturally still without him and without those ever-moving wheels. After what seemed an endless time they heard Miss Miranda coming back.
Every face turned, even David wheeled about, but a single glance showed the result of her errand.
“He roused himself a little,” she said; “he seemed to understand that you were here and to be trying to remember. And then he began to wander, he talked vaguely of water and stars and that was all. It is of no use.”
They shook hands at last and went away, those three men who had brought such hope with them and could leave so little behind.