At this point she turned to Truedale and asked pitifully again:

"Oh! why, why did you do this?"

There was no anger or rebellion in the words, but a pathos that caused
the old man to close his eyes against the pleading in the uplifted face.
It was the one thing he could not stand.

"Time will prove, child; time will prove. I could not make you
understand; your mother might have--I could not. But time will show.
Time is a strange revealer. All my life I have been working in darkness
until--now! I should have trusted more--you must learn from me.

"There, do not keep the man waiting longer. I wonder--do not do it
unless you want to, or think it right--but I wonder if you could kiss me
good-bye?"

Lynda rose and, tear-blinded, bent over and kissed him--kissed him
twice, once for her mother!--and she felt that he understood. She had
never touched her lips to his before, and it seemed a strange ceremony.

An hour later Truedale called for Thomas and was wheeled to his bedroom
and helped to bed.

"Perhaps," he said to the man, "you had better put those drops on the
stand. If I cannot sleep--" Thomas smiled and obeyed. There had been a
time when he feared that small, dark bottle, but not now! He believed
too sincerely in his master's strength of character. Having the medicine
near might, by suggestion, help calm the restlessness, but it had never