"If—if it were not for him," she said, "I think that perhaps—perhaps I might be brave enough to confess it all, and—and not try to escape
from the punishment that I deserve. But he would know—he cannot see, nor hear, nor speak, but he would know—as he seems so strangely, so wonderfully, so supernaturally to know and understand everything. And, oh, he means so much to me, to us all, for it is he, more than any one else, who has saved us from—from what we were. And he loves us. It would shatter his faith, ruin all that his life has meant to him, and—and we cannot bring him grief and sorrow like that. Oh, what can we do! What can we do! We cannot stop—and we cannot go on! We cannot stay here even if we returned the money successfully, and we cannot stay here if we kept it as it is; for things would still have to go on as they are, even if we didn't mean to steal any more, no matter what we might say or do, for it's beyond our control now, and to stay means that we should still have to live and lead our double lives, still have to practise hypocrisy and deceit, and—and I cannot—we cannot do that any more. And the only way to get away from it all is to run away—and we can't do that, either! There is—the Patriarch. We cannot leave him—to break his heart—with none he loves to care for him. We can't do that. He is a very old, old man, and—and I think he has been happy with us, and—and we must make him happy always as long as he lives. We cannot go away and leave him. We can't do that." Then, in a heartbroken, despairing cry: "We can't do—anything!"
No one answered her. She had begged Madison to go over it all again—and she had summed it up herself. There was—the Patriarch.
There was utter silence in the room now, save only for that low, solemn boom of distant surf—for Madison had stopped his nervous pacing up and down, and stood now by the Patriarch's armchair gazing into the fireplace.
The minutes passed, and the silence in that dim, shadowed room grew tense—and tenser still—until the very shadows themselves, as the lamp flickered now and then, seemed to creep and shift and readjust themselves in stealth. No sound—no movement—utter stillness—only, from without, the mourning of the surf, like a dirge now.
And then, with a sudden sob, Helena flung out her arms across the table toward the Patriarch.
"Oh, if he could only speak!" she cried pitifully. "If he could only speak—he would show us the way out."
The words seemed to come to Madison as an added pang. He turned his eyes instinctively from the fireplace to the Patriarch beside him—and then, a moment, as a man stricken, he stood there—and then reaching quickly for the lamp from the table he held it up, and leaned forward toward the figure in the chair.
Helena, startled at the act, rose almost unconsciously to her feet, her hands holding tightly to the table edge—looking at Madison, looking at the silent form where Pale Face Harry, where the Flopper looked.
"What is it?" she asked tensely, under her breath.