"Ah, here's Jason, at last, back from Colchis. Welcome home to—whatever the name of the place was. Welcome home!" He shook Ste. Marie's hand with hospitable violence, and Ste. Marie was astonished to see upon what a new lease of life and strength the old man seemed to have entered. There was no ingratitude or misconception here, certainly. Old David quite overwhelmed his visitor with thanks and with expressions of affection.
"You've saved my life among other things!" he said in his gruff roar. "I was ready to go, but, by the Lord, I'm going to stay a while longer now! This world's a better place than I thought—a much better place." He shook a heavily-waggish head.
"If I didn't know," said he, "what your reward is to be for what you've done, I should be in despair over it all, because there is nothing else in the world that would be anything like adequate. You've been making sure of the reward downstairs, I dare say? Eh, what? Yes?"
"You mean——?" asked the younger man.
And old David said—
"I mean Helen, of course. What else?"
Ste. Marie was not quite himself. At another time he might have got out of the room with an evasive answer, but he spoke without thinking. He said—
"Oh—yes! I suppose—I suppose I ought to tell you that Miss Benham—well, she has changed her mind. That is to say——"
"What!" shouted old David Stewart, in his great voice. "What is that?"
"Why, it seems," said Ste. Marie, "it seems that I only blundered. It seems that Hartley rescued your grandson, not I. And I suppose he did, you know. When you come to think of it, I suppose he did."