And Mom let out a kind of strangled cry and fainted dead away on the
bed....
* * * * *
Dan Parker sat on a chair facing the lounge where Biddy sat close
beside Jane. Dan leaned forward and said, "Now just once more,
baby--tell us what the man did."
Jane said, "Dan! The child's exhausted. She's told us everything she
knows."
"She might have missed something. He had some sort of a diathermy
machine in this cave?"
"What's diathermy, Pop?"
"Never mind that. He fastened some wires from this machine to your leg
and after a while you went to sleep. Can't you remember anything else?"
* * * * *
Biddy yawned. "Nothing except he was very nice and said he came from
the sky bloc."
Jane lifted Biddy in her arms. "I'm going to put her to bed. Nothing
can be done until morning anyhow. Poor baby!"
Dan sat staring at the wall until Jane returned. She came and laid a
hand on his shoulder and he looked up and his thoughts were suddenly
arrested. It was as though Jane had dropped years from her age. The old
glow was in her eyes--a soft wonder--a new happiness.
The realization impressed him but was lost to the new anxiety that was
swiftly rising in his mind. Jane said, "Isn't it wonderful, darling? I
can't understand it, but I've seen Biddy's leg and--and I don't care
how it happened. I don't care if the man in the hills is true or a part
of her imagination. The cure is real--_real_--and I've never been so
happy."
"I think he's genuine--he has to be--and tomorrow we'll find out about
him. But--"
"But what, Dan?"
"I was just thinking--"
Jane sat down on his knee and put an arm around his shoulders.
"Dan--you don't seem too happy about it. I don't understand why--"
Dan Parker looked at his wife and said, "There's another angle to it,
Jane."
"Another angle?"
"If there is such a man as Biddy describes and he cured her deformity,
then he can cure the deformities of others, too."