Judge Houston did not interrupt him. When the wild flow of words had ceased he remained quietly beside Sargent, giving no sign that he had heard what was said.
"You think I am insane, I suppose," Sargent rushed on, even more intensely than before. "You think because I speak out the great desire of my heart—because at last the blood is boiling in my veins, making me like other people, like all the creatures God has made to claim their rights—you think because of all this," his voice broke shrilly, "that I am not the man you thought I was. Is it not so?" He turned and faced Judge Houston, grasping both his arms. "You are disappointed, distressed, terribly shaken in me—answer me? I want to hear you speak?"
The old gentleman's eyes beamed into Sargent's.
"My faith in you is shaken—not one jot!" His words came crisp and full of a deep significance. "I know you too well. I love you as I would have loved my son. My confidence in you is without limit. I know what you will do as surely as if I were going to do it myself!"
Their eyes burned into each other: then over them, enveloping them, came the silence of a miracle. Sargent's hands fell to his side. His body shook for a second like a man who was in the grip of a chill; then, as he gradually grew steady, a great calmness swept over him; his face grew white and set, and from his eyes shone out the look that the wise old man beside him knew would come—the expression of one who has been tempted, and is feeling at last the infinite glory of renunciation.
"How did you know?" Sargent asked at last with a broken sob.
The old gentleman shook his head sadly.
"The other side was not you, Sargent. It was a dream—a horrible dream."
Sargent put his hands to his forehead, pushing back his hair and showing the ivory whiteness of his brow. His face, illumined by the miraculous thought that had come in one minute, grew steadily in beauty until it became almost glorified in its brilliance.
In that instant the meaning of his whole life came to him. His early training, the teachings of his mother, and later his first great experience in his chosen profession, when it seemed that all sides were narrowing about him in his great failure and despair. In Phelps he realized the beacon light that started him towards the goal. It was through him that the conviction had come to him to make his life-work a defence of men who had taken the wrong road. Now, with a thrilling sense of seeing deep into the mystery of life, he realized that every little detail had been a preparation for what was coming. Even his recent temptation was a strengthening of his forces. And from it all he lifted his head with the transcendence of the knowledge was to come the flowering of his life.