"Oh, yes," promised Mr. Marydrew cheerfully, "our maniacs will all be there to welcome us; and in the light that pours out of the Throne, my dears, 'tis very likely indeed we shall find that the softies were often a damn sight saner than some of us, who prided ourselves on our wits."
"That's true for certain," said Jacob. "I can confess before such as you, though to some sort of men I never shall. But I can tell you that I've been mad and am sane again—sane enough, at any rate, never to trust my sanity any more. I was a very proud man, William, but pride has left me. I shall never be proud again, nor proud of anything that belongs to me."
"You never were that," answered Winter. "In fact, where you had the right to be proud, you were not, Bullstone."
They talked together, and Auna, who had been sent away soon after their arrival, now returned and poured drink for them. Jacob felt no objection to saying things before her that he would not have said before his other children.
"It is a good thing in my life to know that you can sit in this room as a friend," he said to Adam Winter. "There's a sort of sorrow that is not all pain; and though I shall never look upon you without sorrow, I shall always welcome the sight of you."
"I understand. And may the welcome never grow less and the sorrow dwindle," answered the other. "We've gone through a deep place; and I've lived to gather from you that you were possessed, as many good men have had the ill luck to be; and please God others, that matter a very great deal more than I do, may live to understand the same."
Thus, upon his home-coming, there fell a fitful ray of peace into the outer regions of Bullstone's mind; and, content for a brief hour to live in the present and trust this Indian summer, he took heart for a little while.
He thanked them for their visit and declared, presently, that his physical wounds had been a good thing.
"To go short on your leg is a trifle, if it helps you to go longer in your heart, and take wider views and rise up into patience," he said. "I'm the wickedest of men, and yet I have got good friends who are wishful for my betterment. And I never shall forget it—never."
"You're not a wicked man, father. Tell him he's not a wicked man, Mr. Marydrew," urged Auna.