"Did you ever hear him speak of John the Baptist?"
Mr. Dayne halted, and looked.
And Sam O'Neill, with some difficulty and in his own way, told of V.V.'s creed about the Huns. Of how he had maintained that they needed awakening, nothing else, and were always ready and waiting for it, no matter how little they themselves knew that. And, finally, how he had said one day--in a phrase that had been brought flashing back over the months--that if a man but called to such as these in the right voice, he could not hide himself where they would not come to him on their knees....
Mr. Dayne had stood listening with a half-mystical look, a man groping for elusive truths. Now his fine composure seemed to cloud for a moment; but it shone out again, fair and strong. And presently, as he paced, he was heard humming again his strange paradoxical song, which he, a parson, seemed to lean upon, as a wounded man leans on his friend.
Her spirit returned to her body from the far countries, not without some pain of juncture. But there was no strangeness now in being in this room; none in finding Mr. Pond at her side, his saddened gaze upon her. Happen what might, nothing any more would ever seem strange....
"Won't you come with me now?"
She stood, whispering: "Come with you?"
And Pond's strong heart turned a little when he saw her eyes, so circled, so dark with tears that were to come.
"Your cousins are waiting, aren't they?... And don't you think your father might need you?"