Eric started up, confused, bewildered, as the voice came shrieking across the orchard. He did not in the least realize that it was Kilmeny who had called to him, but he instinctively obeyed the command.
He wheeled around and saw Neil Gordon, who was looking, not at him, but past him at Kilmeny. The Italian boy’s face was ashen and his eyes were filled with terror and incredulity, as if he had been checked in his murderous purpose by some supernatural interposition. The axe, lying at his feet where he had dropped it in his unutterable consternation on hearing Kilmeny’s cry told the whole tale. But before Eric could utter a word Neil turned, with a cry more like that of an animal than a human being, and fled like a hunted creature into the shadow of the spruce wood.
A moment later Kilmeny, her lovely face dewed with tears and sunned over with smiles, flung herself on Eric’s breast.
“Oh, Eric, I can speak,—I can speak! Oh, it is so wonderful! Eric, I love you—I love you!”
CHAPTER XVIII. NEIL GORDON SOLVES HIS OWN PROBLEM
“It is a miracle!” said Thomas Gordon in an awed tone.
It was the first time he had spoken since Eric and Kilmeny had rushed in, hand in hand, like two children intoxicated with joy and wonder, and gasped out their story together to him and Janet.
“Oh, no, it is very wonderful, but it is not a miracle,” said Eric. “David told me it might happen. I had no hope that it would. He could explain it all to you if he were here.”
Thomas Gordon shook his head. “I doubt if he could, Master—he, or any one else. It is near enough to a miracle for me. Let us thank God reverently and humbly that he has seen fit to remove his curse from the innocent. Your doctors may explain it as they like, lad, but I’m thinking they won’t get much nearer to it than that. It is awesome, that is what it is. Janet, woman, I feel as if I were in a dream. Can Kilmeny really speak?”