Rufus laughed aloud when she was gone. He felt he would either have to laugh or cry. "If only granny were here I should hug her," he said to himself. "I feel so buoyant that I could almost hug Mrs. Tuke."
The wind was still blowing strong from the west as he made his way over the hill to the mine, but its voice was like a song in his ears. The rain had ceased, though the sky was still dark with clouds; but all the landscape seemed flooded with golden sunshine. His nerves were tingling with a new joy, his eyes sparkling with an unwonted fire. He was glad to be alive again, glad to feel the wind of heaven upon his face.
How wearily he had dragged his steps over the hill morning by morning; how dull and continuous had been the pain at his heart! Now all sense of weariness was gone; he seemed to tread on air; his heart was light and buoyant, and all the pain had passed away.
He paused a moment where he paused a year before to look at a patch of green lawn that sloped away from Trewinion Hall. A vision of Madeline Grover came back to him for a second and vanished.
"If it be God's will," he said to himself, reverently, and with a smile upon his face he continued his way.
During the dinner hour he lodged the precious draft in the bank, and then hurried back to the mine again. In a day or two he got word that the draft was quite in order, and had been duly honoured. With that message vanished his last fear, for he had dreamed the previous night that the whole thing was a hoax and the draft not worth the paper on which it was printed.
His first act was to pay back Felix Muller what he owed him with interest. This he did by cheque.
"I cannot see him," he said to himself. "He would pour ridicule on my beliefs, and laugh my new-found faith to scorn. Moreover, I am not sure that he will be grateful, and I would not like my faith in him to be totally destroyed."
Saturday, being half-holiday, he made his way to Tregannon, to see his grandparents and tell them the news. The old folks were greatly excited, and the Rev. Reuben hunted up all the papers and correspondence dealing with his son's property. The names of Seaward and Graythorne did not appear, however, in any of the documents; nor was the name of Judge Cowley ever mentioned.
"I do not understand it at all," the old man said in his most solemn tones. "But then what can you expect in a new country like America? Everything appears to be haphazard and go-as-you-like."