The Patriarch's eyes grew moist as he read the words, and his hand
trembled a little with emotion as he held the pencil.

"I cannot let you do that," he protested. "You are very kind, and it
seems almost as though you had been brought to me providentially at the
end of long years of loneliness for a purpose, when my hour of
helplessness was near; but, indeed, I have no right to allow you to do
this."

"They tell me in the village," wrote Madison in reply, "that you have
always refused to accept a penny for anything you have ever done for
them. I have no doubt you would equally refuse to accept anything from
me for what you may do, and I should hesitate to offer it however much I
felt indebted, but this is something that you must let me do. It will
make me feel more--how shall I say it?--more as though I had a right to
the privilege of coming here."

The Patriarch wiped his still moist eyes before he answered.

"What can I say to you? It does not seem right that I should let a
stranger do so much, and yet it seems that I should not say no
because--"

Madison was bending over the slate, reading as the other wrote, and he
took the pencil gently from the Patriarch's hand.

"You must not look on me any longer as a stranger," he wrote. "Let us
just consider that it is all arranged--only I would strongly advise
making no mention of it until we make sure that she is alive."