--XII--

"SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY"


By the wheel-chair, Mrs. Thornton, her husband and Doc Madison were in
earnest conversation--and around them was a mass of people. The crowd
had divided into two, or, rather, was constantly coming and going
between two points--young Holmes and Mrs. Thornton--and still the
hysteria was upon men and women, still that wavering, moanlike sound
floated over the lawn.

"I am stunned and stupified," Madison was saying, and his hand trembled
visibly in its outflung gesture. "I am not, I am afraid, a man of deep
sensibilities, but I cannot help feeling that I have been permitted,
been chosen even, to witness this sight, a sight that will stay with me
till I die, for some great, ulterior purpose. It's as though this place
were hallowed, set apart; that here, if only one has faith, that man's
miraculous power is boundless--that I should help someway. I--I'm afraid
I don't explain myself well."

"I know what you mean," Mrs. Thornton returned eagerly. "It is what I
was saying to my husband--to make this place known, to help to bring
suffering people here."

Madison nodded silently.

"And if you, who have no personal cause for gratitude, feel like that,