CHAPTER XVIII. FLIGHT OF A SOUL
Beautiful Dreamy Hollow, peaceful, charming—with the master always on hand. No longer in business he lived in a dreamland and never looked out except toward the sea. Alone, he lived in silence, with only the future state in mind. Alone!—not just that—for way up in the skies a sweet soul was waiting and beckoning to him. He could see her quite plainly as the veil lifted at night, and also, whenever he looked this way or that—those were terrible blows that the mad Parkins dealt! Only the strong of heart could have survived them and turned them to account—but Drury Villard, once the farseeing financier, only looked at the heavens and bided his time. Things earthly were now forgotten, and old friends forsaken, not with malice aforethought, but because of a tiny link missing—the mischief of a dreadful night.
To talk with himself was no trouble at all, but to sit and laugh at his own jokes when no one seemed near lent a pathos to those who chanced to look on. But the Winifred of his first love heard him, and evidently applauded, for when unduly excited he ran to the window and clapped both his hands—then called out her name! Just why Mrs. Bond should cry and run out of his presence was a mystery to him. And Santzi, wide-eyed, when he took the master to drive, sometimes felt compelled to signal Jacques to turn back. To avoid passers-by the woods road were used, but the birds seemed to know that a friend was out riding. The blue jays shouted at him and he shouted back, as near in their language as he could imitate.
Then one day came a great specialist from over the ocean. A cable to Updyke told the date of his sailing, and when the big liner warped in at her Hoboken dock, he was on hand to welcome, and took the expert in charge. A few days went by before arrangements were ready, and certain experts engaged to help on the case. It was quite a big party that trailed the Updyke machine down from the city. Among them several nurses—one of them Winifred—with Carver's consent—for hers was the one name that Villard seemed to remember—so Carver himself came along as her escort.
Of course Winifred had nothing to do with the others, or the lances and things—but she was there all in white, as the patient came to, and she was the first person he knew when he opened his eyes. There she was in the life, all smiles, with her husband, and Villard smiled at him, too.
"I—thought you had—all deserted me," said he weakly, but Winifred put a finger over his blue lips, and whispered——
"Don't talk, Uncle Drury—just rest—that's a dear. We're not going to leave you until you are strong and well! There now, close your dear eyes and go back to rest. We'll—not leave you—go back to sleep—back to dreamland—you'll soon be——" And with a smile on his lips Villard lapsed into slumber.
As the great surgeon looked on, a smile lighted his face, and with actual tears in his eyes he grasped Winifred's hand. He had risked his reputation in coming to "far-off America" on such a hopeless case. And to win!——
"Most wonderful!" said he. "There's nothing that answers the call of returning reason as the voice of a sweet woman," he concluded, as he again grasped her hand, and this time squeezed it hard.
Then to George Carver he said: "You're the right kind, young man. You'll go far in the world."