Of the nature of his brain trouble and of his escape I have already told you. Enough that that wondrous bridge which an Omnipotent Providence threw across the river, while we stood gaping upon the other bank, stands fixed as any rock. As often as he will revisit Gramarye, the patient treads it with a firm, confident step. I do not matter—besides, I must soon return to Rome—but, by my advice, Valerie and those who are and are to be about him are schooling themselves to use this same strange bridge. Future safety, I contend, lies in making it a thoroughfare. So only approached, Gramarye will indeed become 'such stuff as dreams are made on,' and the four months he spent there be 'rounded with a sleep,' for ever.
I have told Major Lyveden the story of the lost will, and of your close interest, to which alone he owes his fortune. His great desire is to thank you personally. My own remissness he forgave in undeservedly generous terms.
I expect to leave for Italy early next week, and while I shall write again before that, I shall hope, if you are then in London, to visit you on my way.
Believe me,
Yours very truly,
JOHN FOREST.
The prelate was not the man to exaggerate. Anthony's recovery went on amain. His state of independence had, as we know, been broached by Lady Touchstone: it was becoming that the true extent of his fortune should be disclosed by Monseigneur Forest himself.
The sick man received the news with some emotion.
He felt as though suddenly a wand had been set in his hand—a wand beneath whose careless touch the shifting flux of wishes must set and crystallize. For more than eighteen months he had "thought in pennies." Henceforth it would be unnecessary to think at all. The spectre of Ways and Means was laid for ever. Often, when his purse had been lightest—when he had been forced to eat sparingly of the cheapest food—he had been used to remember an old fragment of Virgil that he had learned as a boy. Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. Times without number he had been glad of the tag. And now it had served its turn…. Looking back upon his penury, he could not wish that he had been spared those lean, ill-favoured days. And when, because of these, Monseigneur Forest reviled himself, Lyveden refused to listen, declaring that the experience had been invaluable, and must surely stand the camel in good stead when the time came for him to negotiate the needle's eye. For a prelate to withstand such a contention was more than difficult…. Yet if the patient spoke to the point, it was by accident. His thoughts were elsewhere. Childishly excited, he was wanting to use his wand. Ridiculously enough, his romping brain could not furnish a wish to be converted…. Suddenly an idea came to him. His dog, his little faithful dog, had gone in need of a collar for over nine months….
Patch!
Mercifully the terrier was dumb. Otherwise the prelate's "Bridge of Providence" must have returned unto the air whence it came. As it was, the dog was brought to the sick-room twice every day. The tenderness with which he treated Anthony was wonderful to see. Naturally boisterous, the efforts with which he mastered the frenzy these interviews provoked, were manifest. He knew that Lyveden had been dangerously ill. He knew that he was mending. The twofold consideration set the flame of his devotion flaring. Yet, when he visited his master, the jet must be reduced to a pilot…. The marvel is the dog did not burst. Instead, placed within reach, he would set a quivering foot upon the bed and lick the caressing hand with a touch that would not have broken a bubble. Presently, whimpering with excitement, he would post about the chamber, seeking an object to present to his lord. Of such, the choice which the room afforded was straitly limited, and when for the second time he had selected one of the knobs of a chest of drawers, endeavouring to detach this by dint of biting it off, the fresh-faced nurse was advised of his intention, and a log of wood was procured to be kept in a corner. Thereafter twice a day the billet was brought reverently to the-bedside.
Poor Patch! It was the best his dull wit could devise.