The days grew rapidly into weeks, and the weeks into months. Autumn gave place to winter, and winter to spring, and spring to summer, and summer began to fade into autumn once more. He had expected to be in Reboth a month, and he had been there a year. And what a year it had been! The most crowded year of his life, and the most formative. He had found his feet at last, had taken the measure of his strength, and realised some of the things of which he was capable.
He heard from his grandfather every week, and now and then he got a letter from Captain Tom Hendy; but the old life was becoming more and more distant, while the last six months he spent in St. Gaved seemed like a hideous dream.
And yet there were times when it seemed an integral and necessary part of the great scheme of his life. A cog in the wheel that couldn't be dispensed with. How strangely he had been led, step by step, through darkness to light, through pain to peace.
It was not until nearly the end of September that he was able to leave Reboth for a little excursion to New York. He felt sure that Madeline was in that city, and his heart was aching for another sight of her face.
That he might have great difficulty in finding her he saw clearly enough, but after all he had passed through, nothing seemed impossible. He might fail in his first effort, and in his second, but he resolved to let nothing daunt him or lead him to give up the quest. Life could never be complete for him until he had found her. He must have answers to the questions that were baffling him to-day—must know the best or the worst.
So he made preparations for a stay of months, if necessary. But in his heart there was a secret hope that Providence was guiding him still.