“Oh, it’s my fault, it’s all my fault!” he cried. “Maud, can’t you persuade him? You are friends.”
“No, dear Thurso,” she said quietly. “I can’t persuade him, and I don’t want to.”
Thurso sat quivering there a moment longer, then he suddenly got up, dashed through the curtained doorway, and a moment afterwards the curtain again bellied inwards, rising free of the ground, and showing that the gale had got into the house again. Then the front-door banged to, and the wind subsided.
“He has gone out again,” said Maud. “Is it safe to leave him?”
“Oh yes. I think he has gone for a doctor, or he may have gone just to despair by himself. Then he will come back and see. He will not harm himself; he won’t even catch cold,” he added, smiling.
“You are sure?” she asked.
“Yes; so are you. Why, Divine Love is pouring into him on all sides. It has got to break him first, then it builds so tenderly, so gloriously.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
“He is cured, you know,” he said. “It’s over.”
Then in flood there came over him all that he had so resolutely banished all these days. He felt that his visit as healer must come to an end at once. But he would see them again, see her again.