Part 23 (2/2)
”You are perfectly safe so long as you remain here,” I laughed; ”you know the lightning never strikes twice in the same place.”
”I hope to stay here, but for better reasons than that.”
”So do I.”
”I should think you would. You, certainly, are no longer homeless. Mr.
and Mrs. Yocomb will adopt you in spite of yourself as soon as they realize it all. The string of the latch will always hang outside of the door for you, I can tell you; and a nice place it will be for a city man to come.”
”And for a city woman, too. Mrs. Yocomb had adopted you before all this happened, and I don't believe she'll forget that you really saved little Zillah's life.”
”The dear little thing!” she exclaimed, tears starting to her eyes.
”How pathetic her little unconscious form was!”
”To me,” I replied earnestly, ”it was the most exquisite and sacred thing I ever saw. I don't wonder you felt as you did when you said, 'I can't--I won't give her up,' for it seemed at the moment almost as if my life depended on her life, so powerful was her hold on my sympathy.
The doctor spoke truer than he thought, for it seems as if the lightning had fused me into this family, and my grief would have been almost as great as Reuben's had little Zillah not revived.”
”I feel as if it would have broken my heart,” and her tears fell fast.
Das.h.i.+ng them away she said, ”I cry as well as laugh too easily, and I'm often so provoked that I could shake myself. I must say that I think we're all becoming well acquainted for people who have met so recently.”
”Oh, as for you,” I replied, ”I knew you well in some previous state of existence, and have just met you again.”
”Mr. Morton,” she said, turning on me brusquely, ”I shall not be quite sure as to your entire sanity till you have had a long sleep. You have seemed a little out of your head on some points ever since our extended acquaintance began. You have appeared impressed or oppressed with the hallucination that this day--is it to-day or to-morrow?”
”It's to-day for a little while longer,” I replied, looking at my watch.
”Well, then, that to-day was 'a day of fate,' and you made me nervous on the subject--”
”Then I'm as sane as you are.”
”No, I hadn't any such nonsense in my mind till you suggested it, but having once entertained the idea it haunted me.”
”Yes, and it haunts you still,” I said, eagerly.
”What time is it, Mr. Morton?”
”It lacks but a few moments of midnight.”
”No,” she said, laughingly, ”I don't believe anything more will happen to-day, and as soon as the old clock downstairs strikes twelve I think the light of reason will burn again in your disordered mind.
Good-night.”
Instead of going, however, she hesitated, looked at me earnestly a moment, then asked:
”You said you found me unconscious?”
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