No one had ever heard Richard Butler say "God bless you" before, and no one ever heard him say it again. But when he said it that day to the dark-haired, white faced, war-worn soldier on the cot in the hospital near Rouen, the words came straight from a big, and brave, and tender heart.
He laid Pen's hand slowly back on the counterpane, and then he parted his white moustache, as he had done that night at the hotel in New York, and bent over and kissed the boy's forehead. It may have been the rapture of the kiss that did it; God knows; but at that moment Pen's tongue was loosened, his lips parted, and he cried out:
"Grandfather!"
With a judgment and a self-denial rare among men, the colonel answered the boy's greeting with another gentle hand-clasp, and a beneficent smile, and turned and marched proudly and gratefully back down the long aisle, stopping here and there to greet some sick soldier who had given him a friendly look or smile, until he stood in the open doorway and lifted up his eyes to gaze on the blue line of distant hills across the Seine.
Later, when the two women came to him, and he went with them to the pension where they were staying, he explained to them the cause of his sudden and unheralded appearance. He had received their cablegrams indeed; but these, instead of serving to allay his anxiety, had made it only the more acute. To wait now for letters was impossible. His patience was utterly exhausted. He could no more have remained quietly at home than he could have shut up his eyes and ears and mouth and lain quietly down to die. The call that came to him from the bed of his beloved grandson in France, that sounded in his ears day-time and night-time as he paced the floors of Bannerhall, was too insistent and imperious to be resisted. Against the vigorous protests of his niece, and the timid remonstrances of the few friends who were made aware of his purpose, he put himself in readiness to sail on the next out-going steamer that would carry him to his longed-for destination. And it was only after he had boarded the vessel, and had felt the slow movement of the ship as she was warped out into the stream, that he became contented, comfortable, thoroughly at ease in body and mind, and ready to await patiently whatever might come to him at the end of his journey.
So it was in good health and spirits that he landed at Havre, came up to Rouen, and made his way to the hospital.
And for once in her life his daughter did not chide him. Instinctively she felt the power of the great tenderness and yearning in his breast that had impelled him to come, and, so far as any word of disapproval was concerned, she was silent.
He talked much about Pen. He asked what they had learned concerning his bravery in battle, the manner in which he had received his wounds, the nature of his long illness, and the probability of his continued convalescence.
"I hope," said Pen's mother, "that I shall be able to take him back to Lowbridge next month."
The old man looked up in surprise and alarm.