Fearing that her name might awaken unpleasant memories that would produce such an attack as in her childhood she had seen Rebecca suffer from, Mahala merely smiled at him and said: “Names do not matter. Was there something you wanted?”
Martin Moreland tried to stand straight. He struggled till the pain of the effort to think was visible on his face; but at last he gave up.
“There was a reason for my coming,” he said, “but I regret to say that I cannot at the present minute recall it.”
In a low voice at her side Jason said to Mahala: “Send him away. I can’t endure the sight of him.”
Mahala lifted her hand to silence Jason. Patiently she said to the old man: “Maybe I can help you to remember what it is that you have forgotten. Did you want to tell me something, or was it Jason?”
At that name Martin Moreland lifted his head. A flash of memory came back to him.
“I want Jason,” he said. “I wanted my son, Jason. He is the only friend that I have left in all the world. I am old, I am tired, I am tortured, I lack food. I have come to beg of him only a crust of bread.”
Mahala went into the house. She brought food and drink. She helped Martin Moreland to seat himself securely upon the chair she brought. She tried to relieve him of the white flag, but he would not allow it to be taken from his fingers. With one hand he clutched it tightly. With the other he took the glass of milk Mahala offered him, but he was shaking so that he could only lift it to his lips with her help. The food he did not touch at all.
He rested a few minutes and then he arose and extended the white flag. He lifted his face to the skies and with more strength and sureness in his voice, he cried: “Behold the emblem of purity. Clean hearts may pass under with God’s blessing. Come, ye workers of darkness, wash your hearts clean by passing under the white flag!”
Mahala gently turned Martin Moreland’s face toward the road again. She led him to the gate and pointed in the direction of Ashwater. “I think,” she said, “that there are a number of sinful people coming along the highway. No doubt many of them will be glad to pass under your flag.”