Christina had come to stay at the cabin so that the girls might not be alone, for Aunt Anna had moved to John Herrick’s house. It seemed at first that she had found her brother only in time to part with him again, for through four terrible days he lay so ill that not even Dr. Minturn could have much hope. Perhaps no one knew until that dreadful time how brave Aunt Anna could be. It was she who was cheerful; it was she who was hopeful and kept up the courage of the others; it was her tired, white, but smiling face upon which John Herrick’s eyes first fell when he opened them to consciousness again.
The three girls were standing in the door and Dr. Minturn was with them, but it was only his sister that John Herrick saw.
“Anna,” he said, “I have had a bad dream, I think.”
“Yes,” she nodded gravely. “We have all been dreaming, but at last we are all awake.”
His eyes went to the window where, in the hot sun of brilliant noonday, the moving tree-tops showed their densest green and the far mountains stood blue against a bluer sky. He looked doubtful for a moment, as though he had expected to find himself in his old home, in that room where the rain in the chimney had lulled him to sleep through childhood nights. When he remembered all that had happened since, would he shrink away again into that isolation he had made for himself? They could actually see, from the changes in his face, just how the flood of memories rose and swept over him, recalling everything, from his accident on the hill back to that day when he had vowed to shut the door of home behind him forever. At last he turned to his sister again and smiled.
“I thought I could never forgive all of you,” he said, “and it was you, this whole long time, who should have forgiven me. Through all these years I have been remembering how I went away, how I looked into that row of serious faces, and thought I read doubt in every one of them. Yes, Anna dear, I know you believed in me still; I know you called after me; but I vowed it was too late. I heard your voice as I closed the door: it has followed me ever since, but I would not listen. Can you forgive me?”
The girls slipped away and Dr. Minturn closed the door.
“He’ll do,” he said gruffly. “He won’t need any of us to cure him now.”