It was impossible for Tommy Dudgeon to conceal the agitation of his mind. He rejoiced at the opportunity to make known his great discovery to his friend; and yet he trembled lest he should prove unequal to the task. He thought, for a moment, that he would gain time by seeming not to understand the reference his friend had made.
“What words do you speak of, chiefly, Mr. Horn?” he asked tremulously, “I said so many——”
But Tommy Dudgeon could not dissemble. He stammered, stopped, wiped his forehead, and stretched out his hands as though in appeal to the mercy of his hearers.
“Of course I know what words you mean!” he cried. “I wanted to tell you of something I had seen for weeks, but that you didn’t seem to see. And I can see it still; and there’s no mistake about it. I’m as certain sure of it, as that I am sitting on this chair. It was about the sec’tary, and some one else; and yet not anybody else, because they’re both the same. May I tell you, Mr. Horn? Can you bear it, do you think?”
“The Golden Shoemaker” regarded the eager face of his little friend with glistening eyes; and Miss Jemima, leaning towards him over the framework of the iron bedstead, listened with an intent countenance, from which all trace of disfavour had vanished away.
“Yes,” said “Cobbler” Horn, in grave, calm tones; “tell us all. We are not unprepared.”
“Thank you,” said the little man, fervently. “But, oh, I wish you knew! I wish God had been pleased to make it known to you,” he added with a reminiscence of his Old Testament studies, “in a dream and vision of the night. Oh, my dear friend, don’t you see that what you’ve been longing and praying for all these years has come to pass—as we always knew it would; and—and that she’s come back! she’s come back? There, that’s what I meant!”
“Then it really was so,” said “Cobbler” Horn. “I’m surprised I did not perceive your meaning at the time.”
Tommy thought him wonderfully calm.
“But I must tell you, Tommy, that we have now very much reason to think that your surmise is correct.”