Filhiol nodded.
“And you, too,” he murmured. “Yes, facts are facts. Still, it was all in the line of duty. We’re neither of us too old to stand up to duty, captain. I hope we’ll never be. Hal’s cured. There can’t be any manner of doubt about that. The curse of unbridled strength is lifted from him. He’s another man now. The powers of darkness have defeated themselves. And the new dawn is breaking.”
He paused a moment, looking intently into the old captain’s face, then turned again toward the door.
“I’m very tired now,” said he. “There’s nothing more I can do. Let me go, captain.”
Alpheus Briggs clasped his hand in silence. For a long minute the hands of the two old men gripped each other with eloquent force. Then Filhiol hobbled through the door and disappeared.
The captain turned back to Laura. There were tears in his eyes as he said:
“If there were more like Filhiol, what a different world this would be!”
“It is a different world to-day, anyhow, from what it was yesterday,” smiled Laura. She bent over Hal and smoothed back the heavy black hair from his white forehead. “A different world for all of us, Hal!”
His hand moved slightly, but could not go to hers. She took it, clasped it against her full, warm breast, and raised it to her mouth and kissed it. She felt a slight, almost imperceptible pressure of his fingers. Her smile grew deep with meaning, for in that instant visions of the future were revealed.
The sunlight, strengthening, moved slowly across the wall whence now the kris had been torn down. A ray touched the old captain’s white hair, englorifying it. He laid his hand on Laura’s hand and Hal’s; and in his eyes were tears, but now glad tears that washed away all bitter memories.
From without, through a half-opened window that let sweet June drift in, echoed sounds of life. Voices of village children sounded along the hedge. Cartwheels rattled. The anvil, early at work, sent up its musical clank-clank-clank to Snug Haven.
From an elm near the broad porch, the sudden melody of a robin, greeting the new day after the night of storm, echoed in hearts now infinitely glad.