at once,
but by fast, startling degrees, the gray misery which had bound eyes and
mouth and brow in iron dropped as if a cover were being torn off and a
light set free. Amazement, doubting, incredulous came first, and with
that eagerness, trembling and afraid. And then hope--and then the fear
to hope. And hunger. He bent forward, his eyes peered into the quiet
emptiness, his fingers gripped the cloth as if to anchor him to a
wonder, to an unbelievable something; his body leaned--to something--and
his face now was the face of a starved man, of a man dying from thirst,
who sees food, water, salvation.

And his face changed; a quality incredible was coming into it--joy. He
was transformed. Lines softened by magic; color came, and light in the
eyes; the first unbelief, the amazement, shifted surely, swiftly, and in
a flash the whole man shone, shook with rapture. He threw out before him
his arms, reaching, clasping, and from his radiant look the arms might
have held all happiness.

A minute he stayed so with his hands stretched out, with face glowing,
then slowly, his eyes straining as if perhaps they followed a vision
which faded from them--slowly his arms fell and the expectancy went from
his look. Yet not the light, not the joy. His body quivered; his breath
came unevenly, as of one just gone through a crisis; every sense seemed
still alive to catch a faintest note of something exquisite which
vanished; and with that the spell, rapidly as it had come, was gone.
And the man sat there quiet, as he had sat an hour before, and the face
which had been leaden was brilliant. He stirred and glanced about the
room as if trying to adjust himself, and his eyes smiled as they rested
on the familiar objects, as if for love of them, for pleasure in them.
One might have said that this man had been given back at a blow youth
and happiness. Movement seemed beyond him yet--he was yet dazed with the
newness of a marvel--but he turned his head and saw the fire and at that
put out his hand to it as if to a friend.

The electric bell burred softly again through the house, and the man
heard it, and his eyes rested inquiringly on the door of the library. In
a moment another man stood there, of his own age, iron-gray,
strong-featured.

"Dick told me I might come," he said. "Shall I trouble you? May I stay
with you awhile?"

The judge put out his hand friendlily, a little vaguely, much as he had
put it out to the fire. "Surely," he said, a