She stopped short, in silence. As he saw her Lang felt suddenly full of brimming satisfaction, a pervading, full content, such as he had never known before in his life. They gazed at each other in silence, for a single, magnetic instant that seemed full of mysterious implication. Then Lang, a trifle dazed, saw that Eva was holding out her hand and greeting him with hurried words that he barely took in.
“I never thought I would see you again,” he stammered awkwardly.
“You haven’t much faith in me.”
“I have far more faith in you than I have in anything else in the world,” he returned.
She searched his face for a moment, looking almost startled, hesitated, and then turned quickly, still holding his hand as if to guide him.
“Come this way and see father. He’ll be so glad you’ve come. We didn’t look for you for days—the next steamer.”
She conducted him back round the corner of the veranda, and far toward the rear of the building a big man, dressed in white duck, was sitting in a steamer chair, a litter of newspapers around him. He looked up sharply. An immediate look of recognition came over his face, and he put out a big, bony hand.
It was a very different man from the haggard, unshaven, blind-eyed Rockett whom the physician had studied with such intentness on the Cavite; but he recognized that big, grim, but not wholly unkindly countenance, though the piercing gray eyes were, of course, strange to him.
“Your patient again, doctor!” said the explorer, still with a slight stammer and thickness in his articulation.
“Not my patient any more, I hope. You seem to have made a recovery,” said Lang cordially.