Michael’s wits seemed to be wandering a little when they returned to him, nor did he appear to understand very clearly the account that, both speaking excitedly, they poured into his ears.
“Of course, of course,” he kept repeating a little impatiently, “did I not tell you that the secret of the ill luck charm lay in the pool of stars?”
“You did, Michael,” Betsey agreed soothingly at last, “but you see we did not quite understand.”
“And now,” said David, getting up, “I am going back to the cottage to telephone for the doctor and to bring help to carry Michael home. It will not be long.”
Betsey sat very quiet after he had gone. The wind whooped and whirled overhead, bowing the trees and beating back and forth the branches of the vines and shrubs. All at once she began to hear a strange cracking, a grating of stones and the snapping of ivy stems, the crushing of bushes, then an appalling rumble that grew to a deafening crash of falling stone. Even in the sheltered corner where they were, the ground rocked and a cloud of gritty dust blew in upon them, almost choking them both. Michael, startled, actually managed to raise himself on his elbow.
“What was that?” he asked.
“The wind has carried down the last walls that were standing in the south wing,” she replied. “David said that they have been crumbling for years and that lately, with feet going back and forth over them, they have grown more and more ready to fall. I am glad you did not go farther, you might have been hurt worse than this.”
The old man’s brain seemed to have been aroused by the shock into a moment of absolute clearness.
“I should have been buried entirely, I am thinking,” he remarked, “and there would have been an end to an old fool and his whims and fancies. I sought to set things right in my own way and have done nothing but harm, while it is you and Mr. David have found out all the trouble by your plain good sense and loyal friendship, and will know how to mend what has gone amiss. It is your standing so firm by Miss Miranda that has made things go well again.”
“But it was you who told me to stand by her,” Betsey reminded him comfortingly. “I would never have dreamed that I could help her if you had not told me so.”