“Little man,” he said, “if I told you you had been the means of bringing to me the greatest gift of my life, what would you say?”
For an instant Thorndyke stood as much astonished as on the day when the doctor first talked to him about fishing and going to school.
“I never gave you anything,” he said; “you give me everything, and it makes me feel happy and strong even to know that you are near; but I never gave you anything. What do I ever have to give?”
“Tut,” said the doctor stooping a little and looking closer into his face with the old smile, “don’t you know you are all I have in the world; all I have had, rather. Did you ever see my chaise standing where it did to-night, before?”
“Yes,” said Thorndyke, “and I supposed something was the matter, but I did not ask of course.”
The doctor laughed, and letting go his hold of Thorndyke, walked back and forth across the room.
“Did it ever occur to you,” he asked, after a while, “did it ever occur to you that you and I had lived here like two miserable old bachelors, almost long enough? And if there was any one on the face of the earth that could come here and take this old world of ours and make a new one of it that would seem a good deal like Paradise, who should you say it would be?”
A sudden thought swept over Thorndyke’s mind, though it seemed only a dream.
“The princess!” he exclaimed; “but—”