ONE:"Miss Coralie Rothvelt; yes, all right," said the officer, "the men that rode with you this morning told me all about you." He went with her as far as his videttes, and thence she rode alone to a picket of the Federal army and by her request was conducted under guard to the headquarters of a corps commander. To him and his chief-of-staff she told the fate of Jewett's scouts and delivered the messages of their dying leader; and then she tendered the hero's sword.
TWO:"But he is!" I overheard the aide-de-camp say; "he is a backbiting sneak, and I tell you again he's backbitten nobody more than he has you!"
ONE:The Doctor shut the door carefully and lifted a warning finger. "Gregg, this thing must never be known. It must never go beyond ourselves."
TWO:"Wait," said the Clockwork man, without altering his position, "moment of luciditysee things as they arebegin to understand[Pg 89]finite worldonly one thing at a time. Now we've got ita place for everything and everything in its place."
ONE: "'The rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air--'"
TWO:"Quite so," answered Dr. Bronson; "I don't think Frank is likely to be forgetful of home."And now that he had disappeared there was a strong chance that he would never return, and that his personality and all that was connected with him would dissolve from[Pg 193] memory of man or crystallise into a legend. That seemed a legitimate consummation of the affair, and it was the one that Doctor Allingham finally accepted. This visitation, like other alleged miracles in the past, had a meaning; and it was the meaning that mattered more than the actual miracle. To discover the significance of the Clockwork man seemed to Doctor Allingham a task worthy of the highest powers of man.
