The man, flushed and angered, still gesticulated and muttered to himself. But at the sound of the Bishop's voice, for a moment there flashed into his eyes almost the saneness of returned reason. His anger vanished. A kindly smile spread over his face. He came toward the Bishop pleadingly—holding out both hands and striving to speak. Climbing into the buggy, he sat down by the old man's side, quite happy and satisfied—and as a little child.
“Where are you from?” asked the Bishop again.
The man shook his head. He pointed to his head and looked meaningly at the Bishop.
“Can't you tell me where you're gwine, then?”
He looked at the Bishop inquisitively, and for a moment, only, the same look—almost of intelligence—shone in his eyes. Slowly and with much difficulty—ay, even as if he were spelling it out, he said:
“A-l-i-c-e”—
The old man turned quickly. Then he paled tremblingly to his very forehead. The word itself—the sound of that voice sent the blood rushing to his heart.
“Alice?—and what does he mean? An' his voice an' his eyes—Alice—my God—it's Cap'n Tom!”
Tenderly, calmly he pulled the cap from off the strange being's head and felt amid the unkempt locks. But his hands trembled so he could scarcely control them, and the sight of the poor, broken, half demented thing before him—so satisfied and happy that he had found a voice he knew—this creature, the brave, the chivalrous, the heroic Captain Tom! He could scarcely see for the tears which ran down his cheeks.
But as he felt, in the depth of his shock of hair, his finger slipped into an ugly scar, sinking into a cup-shaped hollow fracture which gleamed in his hair.