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Up the Hill and Over

by Isabel Ecclestone Mackay · English · Gutenberg #10438 · 554,871 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Up the Hill and Over

Author: Isabel Ecclestone Mackay


        
Release date: December 1, 2003 [eBook #10438]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10438

Credits: E-text prepared by Brendan Lane, Charlie Kirschner, and the Prooject Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UP THE HILL AND OVER ***

UP THE HILL

AND OVER

BY

ISABEL ECCLESTONE MACKAY
Author of "The House of Windows," etc.






     _The road runs back and the road runs on,
          But the air has a scent of clover_.
     _And another day brings another dawn,
          When we're up the hill and over_.



TO MY MOTHER

WHO MIGHT HAVE LIKED THIS BOOK HAD SHE LIVED TO READ IT





CHAPTER I


     "From Wimbleton to Wombleton is fifteen miles,
      From Wombleton to Wimbleton is fifteen miles,
      From Wombleton to Wimbleton,
      From Wimbleton to Wombleton,
      From Wombleton--to Wimbleton--is fif--teen miles!"

The cheery singing ended abruptly with the collapse of the singer upon a
particularly inviting slope of grass. He was very dusty. He was very
hot. The way from Wimbleton to Wombleton seemed suddenly extraordinarily
long and tiresome. The slope was green and cool. Just below it slept a
cool, green pool, deep, delicious--a swimming pool such as dreams
are made of.

If there were no one about--but there was some one about. Further down
the slope, and stretched at full length upon it, lay a small boy. Near
the small boy lay a packet of school books.

The wayfarer's lips relaxed in an appreciative smile.

"Little boy," he called, somewhat hoarsely on account of the dust in his
throat, "little boy, can you tell me how far it is from here to
Wimbleton?"

Apparently the little boy was deaf.

The questioner raised his voice, "or if you can oblige me with the exact
distance to Wombleton," he went on earnestly, "that will do quite
as well."

No answer, civil or otherwise, from the youth by the pool. Only a
convulsive wiggle intended to cover the undefended position of the
school books.

The traveller's smile broadened but he made no further effort toward
sociability. Neither did he go away. To the dismayed eyes, watching
through the cover of some long grass, he was clearly a person devoid of
all fine feeling. Or perhaps he had never been taught not to stay where
he wasn't wanted. Mebby he didn't even know that he _wasn't_ wanted.

In order to remove all doubt as to the latter point, the small boy's
head shot up suddenly out of the covering grass.

"What d'ye want?" he asked forbiddingly.

"Little boy," said the stranger, "I thank you. I want for nothing."

The head collapsed, but quickly came up again.

"Ain't yeh goin' anywhere?" asked a despairing voice.

"I was going, little boy, but I have stopped."

This was so true that the small boy sat up and scowled.

"I judge," went on the other, "that I am now midway between Arden,
otherwise, Wimbleton, and Arcady, sometime known as Wombleton. The
question is, which way and how? A simple sum in arithmetic will--little
boy, do not frown like that! The wind may change. Smile nicely, and I'll
tell you something."

Urged by necessity, the badgered one attempted to look pleasant.

"That's better! Now, my cheerful child, what I really want to know is
'how many miles to Babylon?'"

A reluctant grin showed that the small boy's early education had not
been utterly neglected. "Aw, what yeh givin' us?" he protested
sheepishly, "if it's Coombe you're lookin' for, it's 'bout a mile and a
half down the next holler."

"Holler?" the stranger's tone was faintly questioning. "Oh, I see. You
mean 'hollow,' which being interpreted means 'valley,' which means, I
fear, another hill. Little boy, do you want to carry a knapsack?"

"Nope."

"No? Strange that nobody seems to want to carry a knapsack. I least of
all. Well," lifting the object with disfavour, "good-day to you. I
perceive that you grow impatient for those aquatic pleasures for which
you have temporarily abjured the more severe delights of scholarship.
Little boy, I wish you a very good swim."

"Gee," muttered the small boy, "gee, ain't he the word-slinger!"

He returned to the pool but something of its charm was dissipated. Vague
thoughts of school inspectors and retribution troubled its waters. Not
that he was at all afraid of school inspectors, or that he really
suspected the stranger of being one. Still, discretion is a wise thing
and word-slinging is undoubtedly a form of art much used in high
scholastic circles. Also there had been a remark about a simple sum in
arithmetic which was, to say the least, disquieting. With a bursting
sigh, the small sinner scrambled to his feet, reached for the hated
books, and disappeared rapidly in the direction of the halls of
learning.

Meanwhile the stranger, unconscious of the moral awakening behind him,
plodded wearily up the steep and sunny hill. As he is our hero we shall
not describe him. There is no hurry, and there will be other occasions
upon which he will appear to better advantage. At present let us be
content with knowing that there was no reason for the hat and suit he
wore save a mistaken idea of artistic suitability. "If I am going to be
a tramp," he had said, "I want to look like a tramp." He didn't, but his
hat and coat did.

He felt like a tramp, though, if to feel like a tramp is to feel hot and
sticky and hungry. Perhaps real tramps do not feel like this. Perhaps
they enjoy walking. At any rate they do not carry knapsacks, but betray
a touching faith in Providence in the matter of clean linen and
tooth brushes.

Before the top of the hill was reached, Dr. Callandar wished devoutly
that in this last respect he had behaved like the real thing. In setting
out to lead the simple life the ultimate is to be recommended--and
knapsacks are not the ultimate. They are heavy things with the property
of growing heavier, and prove of little use save to sit upon in damp
places. The doctor's feelings in regard to his were intensified by an
utter lack of dampness anywhere. The top of the hill was a sun-crowned
eminence, blazingly, blisteringly, suffocatingly hot. The valley, spread
out beneath him, was soaked in sunshine, a haze of heat quivered visibly
above the roofs of the pretty town it cradled. There was a river and
there were woods, but the trees hung motionless, and the river wound
like a snake of brass among them.

The doctor regarded both the knapsack and the prospect resentfully. He
had hoped for a breeze upon the hill-top, and there was no breeze.
Raising his hand to remove his hat, he noticed that the hand was
trembling, and swore softly. The hand continued to tremble, and holding
it out before him he watched it, interestedly, until a powerful will
brought the quivering nerves into subjection.

"Jove!" he muttered. "Not a moment too soon--this holiday!"

Then, hat in hand, he started down the hill.

It was a long hill, very long, much longer than it had any need or right
to be. It had a twist in its nature which would not allow it to run
straight. It meandered; it hesitated; it never knew its own mind, but
twisted and turned and thought better of it a dozen times in half a
mile. It was a hill with short cuts favourably known to small boys and
to tramps with a distaste for highways; but this tramp, not being a real
one, knew none of them, and was compelled to do exactly as the hill did.
The result was, that when at last it slipped into the cool shade of a
row of beeches at its base, its victim was as exhausted as itself.

He was thirsty, too, and, worse still, he knew from a certain dizzy
blindness that one of his bad headaches was coming on--and there still
lay another mile between him and the town. Pressing his hand against his
eyes to restore for the moment their normal clearness of vision, he saw,
a short way down the road, a gate; and through the gate and behind some
trees, the white gleam of a building. But better than all, he saw,
between the gate and the building, a red pump! Then the blindness and
pain descended again, and he stumbled on more by faith than by sight;
blundering through the half-open gate, his precarious course directed
wholly by the pump's exceeding redness, which shone like a beacon
fire ahead.

Fortunately, it was a real pump with real water and a sucker in good
standing, warranted to need no priming. At the stroke of the red handle
the good, cool water gurgled and arose with a delightful "plop!" It
splashed from the spout freely upon the face and hands of the victim of
the long hill--delicious, life-giving! The delight it brought seemed
compensation almost for heat and pain and weariness. Callandar felt that
if he could only let its sweetness stream indefinitely over his closed
eyes it would wash away the blindness and the ache. Perhaps--

"I am afraid I cannot allow you to use this pump!" said a crisp voice
primly. "This is not," with capital letters, "a Public Pump!"

Callandar wiped the surplus water from his face and looked up. There,
beside him in the yellow haze of his semi-blindness, stood the owner of
the voice. She appeared to be clothed in white, tall and commanding.
Surrounded by the luminous mist, her appearance was not unlike that of a
cool and capable avenging angel.

"This pump," went on the angel with nice precision, "is not for the use
of pedestrians."

"Ah!" said the pedestrian.

"If you will continue down the road," the voice went on, "you will find,
when you reach the town, a public pump. You may use that."

The pedestrian, feeling dizzier than ever, sat down upon the pump
platform. It was wet and cool.

"The objection to that," he said wisely, "is simple. I cannot continue
down the road."

"I should like you to go at once," patiently. "There is a pump--"

The pedestrian raised a deprecating hand.

"Let us admit the pump! Doubtless the pump is there, but there is a pump
here also, and a pump in the hand is worth two pumps, an ice-box and a
John Collins in town. You doubtless know the situation created by
Mahomet and the mountain? This is the same, with a difference. In this
case the pump will not come to me and I cannot go to the pump. Therefore
we both remain _in statu quo_. Do I make myself plain?"

Apparently he did, for there was no answer. Logic, he concluded, had
achieved its usual triumph. The avenging angel had withdrawn. Blissfully
he stooped again, closing his eyes to the cool drip of the water, but
scarcely had they felt its chill relief when a sharp bark caused them to
fly open with disconcerting suddenness--the avenging angel had returned,
and with her was an avenging dog! Seen through the mist, the dog
appeared to be a bull pup of ferocious aspect.

"I am sorry," the cool voice had no ruth in it, "but it is my duty not
to allow tramps upon these grounds. If you will not go, I must ask
the dog--"

"ASK the dog!" In spite of his aching head the tramp (now no longer
pedestrian) laughed weakly.

"Oh, please don't ask him!" he entreated. "He looks too awfully willing!
Besides, I begin to perceive that my presence is not desired. Naturally
I scorn to remain."

Very slowly he raised himself from the damp pump platform by means of
the red pump-handle. In this manner he achieved an upright position
without much difficulty and all might have gone well had he behaved like
a proper tramp. But forgetting himself, under the tyranny of training
and instinct, he attempted, in deference to the sex of the angel, to
raise his hat (which was not on his head anyway). In so doing he
released the red pump-handle, lost his balance, struggled wildly to
regain it, and then collapsed with a terrible sense of failure and
ignominy, right into the open jaws, as it were, of the avenging dog!




CHAPTER II


He had a fancy that something cool and kind was licking his hand....

It felt like the tongue of a friendly dog. He seemed to have been
dreaming about dogs. Something soft and cold lay on his head. It felt
like a wet handkerchief ... the pain had dulled to a slow throbbing ...
if he opened his eyes he would know who licked his hand and what it was
that lay upon his head ... on the other hand, opening his eyes might
bring back the pain. It seemed hardly worth the risk ... still, he would
very much like to know--

Without being able to decide the question, he fell asleep.

When he awoke, his head was clear and the pain was gone. He felt no
longer unbearably tired, but only comfortably weary, deliciously drowsy.
Had he been at home in his own bed he would have turned over and gone
cheerfully to sleep again. As it was, he opened his eyes with a zestful
sense of curiosity.

He was lying, very easily, upon soft grass. Above him spread the thick
greenery of a giant maple; his head rested upon a cushion and close
beside him, with comforting nose thrust into his open palm, lay a
ferocious-looking bull pup. The pup grinned with delight at his
tentative pat; barked fiercely, and then grinned again as if to say,
"Don't mind me, it's only my fun!"

There was a noise somewhere, a loud, cheerful noise--the noise of
children playing. Not one child, nor two, but children--lots of them!
This was perplexing; and another perplexing thing was the nearness of a
white stoop which led up to the door of a white building; neither stoop
nor building had he ever seen before. Again the dog barked, loudly, and
as if in answer to the bark, the door above the stoop opened and a young
girl came out. She cast a casual glance at him as he lay under the tree,
and, settling herself daintily upon the white steps, opened a small
basket and took from it a serviceable square of white damask and a
lettuce sandwich. He could see the lettuce, crisp and green, peeping out
at the edges.

At the sight, he was conscious of a strange sensation; an almost
forgotten feeling to which, for the moment, he could put no name.

And then, as the girl bit into the sandwich, illumination came. He was
_hungry_! But what an unkind, inconsiderate girl!--Another bite and the
sandwich would be gone--

"I am awake," he suggested meekly.

"So Buster said." The girl smiled approvingly at the dog. "Good Buster!
You may come off guard, sir. Run away and get your lunch."

With a delighted bark for thanks the bull pup trotted away. Callandar's
sense of injury deepened. The girl had begun upon a second sandwich.
Perhaps there were only two!

"Are you hungry, Mr. Tramp?" asked the girl innocently.

"I think," he said, pausing in order to give his words full weight, "I
am starving!" Then, as the blissful meaning of this first feeling of
healthy hunger dawned upon him, he added solemnly: "Thank the Lord!"

"Yes?" There was a cool edge of surprise in the girl's voice. She
proceeded thoughtfully with the second sandwich.

"Yes. Hunger is a beautiful thing, a priceless possession. Money cannot
buy it, skill cannot command it. The price of hunger is far
above rubies."

The girl looked down upon him and smiled. It was such a dear little
smile that for a moment its recipient forgot about the disappearing
sandwich.

"I am so glad," she said warmly, "that you feel like that!"

There was a slight pause. "Because," she went on, finishing the last
bite of the second sandwich, "until now I had always thought that hunger
wasn't a bit nice. Unless, of course, one has the power to gratify it."

"Fortunately," said Callandar a little stiffly, "I have that power."

The girl raised her eyebrows. They were long and straight and black, and
she raised them charmingly. But she was a most unkind and heartless
girl, for all that. Never while he lived would he ask her for a
sandwich. With a comfortable feeling of security his hand felt for his
well-filled pocketbook. It was gone!

"By Jove!"

Stronger ejaculation seemed forbidden by the Presence on the steps. He
tapped all his pockets carefully. The pocketbook was in none of
them--and he had used the last cent of loose change for a glass of milk
for breakfast.

"I suppose," the girl had apparently not noticed his sudden
discomfiture, "that you mean you have money? But the nearest place where
money would be of use is Coombe, and Coombe is a full mile away. It is
a pity that my principles, and the principles of the school-board,
should be all against the feeding of tramps. Otherwise I might offer you
a sandwich."

"You might," bitterly, "but I doubt it!"

"Even now, putting the school-board aside, I might offer you one if you
were to ask prettily and to apologise to me for making rather a fool of
me this morning over there by the pump!"

The pump! Why, of course, the pump! It all came back to him now--the
pump, the avenging angel! (Had this been the avenging angel?) The
avenging dog!--Oh, heaven, was _that_ the avenging dog?

He burst into a boyish shout of laughter.

"There are only two sandwiches left," she warned him. The doctor stopped
laughing.

"Oh, please!" he said.

There was something very pleasant about him when he used that tone; a
persuasive charm, a trace of command. The girl liked it--and passed
a sandwich.

"Anyway it was you who took for granted that I was a tramp," he smiled
at her. "If I remember rightly I was hardly in a condition to contradict
you. Not but that it was a natural conclusion. I am curious to know why
you changed your mind."

"Oh! as soon as you fainted I knew. Tramps don't faint!"

"Not ever?"

"Well--hardly ever! And besides--look at your hands!"

The doctor looked, and blushed.

"Dirty?" he ventured.

"Not half dirty enough! And it wasn't only your hands. I noticed--oh!
lots of things!" For no perceptible reason a tiny blush fluttered
across the whiteness of her face like a roseleaf chased by the wind. The
pleasure of watching it made the doctor forget to answer, and the
girl went on:

"I know lots more about you than that you aren't a tramp. I know what
you are. You are a doctor!" triumphantly.

"A Daniel come to judgment!"

"Yes, a Daniel! Only I wouldn't have been quite so sure if you hadn't
dropped this out of your pocket." With a gleeful laugh she held up a
clinical thermometer.

The doctor laughed also. "Men have been hanged on less evidence than
that," he admitted. "All the same I don't know where it came from. Some
one must have judged me capable of wanting to take my own temperature.
Anything else?"

"Only general deductions. You are a doctor, you are going to
Coombe--deduction, you are the doctor who is going to buy out Dr.
Simmonds's practice."

Callandar scrambled up from his pillow with a look of delighted surprise
on his face.

"Why--so I am!" he exclaimed.

"You say that as if you had just found it out."

"Well, er--you see I had forgotten it--temporarily. My head, you know."

The suspicion in the girl's eyes melted into sympathy. "I suppose you
know," she said with quite a motherly air, "that old Doc. Simmonds
hasn't really any practice to sell?"

"No? That's bad. Hasn't he even a little one? You see" (the sympathy had
been so pleasant that he felt he could do with a little more of it), "I
could hardly manage a big one just now. As you may have noticed, my
health is rather rocky. Got to lay up and all that--so it's just as
well that old Simpkins' practice is on the ragged edge."

"The name is Simmonds, not Simpkins," coldly.

"Well, I didn't buy the name with the practice. My own name is
Callandar. Much nicer, don't you think?"

"I don't know. A well-known name is rather a handicap."

This time the doctor was genuinely surprised.

"A handicap? What do you mean?"

"People will be sure to compare you with your famous namesake, Dr.
Callandar, of Montreal. Everyone you meet," with a mischievous smile,
"will say, 'Callandar--ah! no relation to Dr. Henry Callandar of
Montreal, I suppose?' And then they will look sympathetic and you will
want to slap them."

"Dear me! I never thought of that! I had no idea that the Montreal man
would be known up here. In the cities, perhaps, but not here."

The girl raised her straight black brows in a way which expressed
displeasure at his slighting tone.

"You are mistaken," she said briefly. "I must go now. It is time to ring
the bell. The children are running wild."

For the first time the doctor began to take an intelligent interest in
his surroundings, and saw that the tree, the white stoop and the small
white building were situated in a little, quiet oasis separated by a low
fence from the desert of a large yard containing the red pump. On the
other side of the fence was pandemonium!

"Why, it's a school!" he exclaimed.

The school-mistress arose, daintily flicking the crumbs from her white
piqué skirt.

"District No. 15. The largest attendance of any in the county. I really
must ring the bell." She flicked another invisible crumb. "I hope," she
added slowly, "that I haven't discouraged you."

"Oh, no! not at all. Quite the contrary. It seems unfortunate about the
name, but perhaps I can live it down. It isn't as if I were just out of
college, you know.--In fact," as if the thought had just come to him,
"do I not seem to you to be a little old for--to be making a
fresh start?"

The girl's eyes looked at him very kindly. It was quite evident that she
thought she understood the situation perfectly. "I shouldn't worry about
that, if I were you," she said. "Young doctors are often no use at all.
A great many people _prefer_ doctors to be older! I know, you see, for
my father was a doctor. He was Dr. Coombe; for many years he was the
only doctor here, the only doctor that counted," with a pretty air of
pride. "The town was named after his father-I am Esther Coombe."

The doctor acknowledged the introduction with a bow and a quick smile of
gratitude.

"You are really very kind, Miss Coombe," he said. "If--if I should take
Dr. Spifkin's practice, I hope I may see you sometimes. It is not far
from here, is it, to the town--pump?"

Esther laughed. "No, but I do not live out here. I only teach here. We
live in town, or almost in. You will pass the house on the way to the
hotel. But before you go--" with a gleeful smile she handed him his lost
pocketbook--"this fell out of your coat when I pull--helped you under
the tree. I should have given it to you before, but I wanted you to
understand just how far the blessing of hunger depends upon one's power
to gratify it."

They laughed together with a splendid sense of comradeship; then with a
startled "I really must ring the bell!" she turned and ran up the steps.

Smilingly he watched her disappear, waiting musingly until a sudden
furious ringing told him that school was called.




CHAPTER III


Two sandwiches, an apple, and a glass of water may save a man from
starvation, but they do not go far towards satisfying the reviving
appetite of a convalescent. Walking with brisk step down the road,
Callandar began to imagine the kind of meal he would order--a clear
soup, broiled steak, crisp potatoes--a few little simple things like
that! He fingered his pocketbook lovingly, glad that, for the first time
in some months, he actually wanted something that money could buy.

Now that noon was past, the intense heat of the morning was tempered by
a breeze. It was still hot and his footsteps raised little cyclones of
dust which flew along the road before him, but the oppression in the air
was gone, and walking had ceased to be a weariness. The mile which
separated him from Coombe appeared no longer endless, yet so insistent
were the demands of his inner man that when a town-going farmer hailed
him with the usual offer of a "lift," he accepted the invitation
with alacrity.

"Better," he murmured to himself, "the delights of rustic conversation
with a good meal at the end thereof than lordly solitude and
emptiness withal."

But contrary to expectation the rustic declined to converse. He was a
melancholy-looking man with a long jaw and eyes so deep-set that the
observer took them on faith, and a nose which alone would have been
sufficient to identify him. Beyond the first request to "step up," he
vouchsafed no word and, save for an inarticulate gurgle to his horse,
seemed lost in an ageless calm. His gaze was fixed upon some indefinite
portion of the horse's back and he drove leaning forward in an attitude
of complete bodily and mental relaxation. If his guest wished
conversation it was apparent that he must set it going himself.

"Very warm day!" said Callandar tentatively.

"So-so." The farmer slapped the reins over the horse's flank, jerked
them abruptly and murmured a hoarse "Giddap!" It was his method of
encouraging the onward motion of the animal.

"Is it always as warm as this hereabouts?"

"No. Sometimes we get it a little cooler 'bout Christmas."

The doctor flushed with annoyance and then laughed.

"You see," he explained, "I'm new to this part of the country. But I
always thought you had it cooler up here."

The manner of the rustic grew more genial.

"Mostly we do," he admitted; "but this here is a hot spell." Another
long pause and then he volunteered suddenly: "You can mostly tell by
Alviry. When she gets a sunstroke it's purty hot. I'm going for the
doctor now."

"Going for the doctor?" Callandar's gaze swept the peaceful figure with
incredulous amusement. "Great Scott, man! Why don't you hurry? Can't the
horse go any faster?"

"Maybe," resignedly, "but he won't."

"Make him, then! A sunstroke may be a very serious business. Your wife
may be dead before you get back."

The deep-set eyes turned to him slowly. There seemed something like a
distant sparkle in their depths.

"Don't get to worrying, stranger. It'll take more 'an a sunstroke to
polish off Alviry."

"Was she unconscious?"

"Not so as you could notice."

"But if it were a sunstroke--look here, I'll go with you myself. I am a
doctor."

"Kind of thought you might be," he responded genially. "Thinking of
taking on old Doc. Simmonds's practice?"

"I don't know. But if your wife--"

The rustic shook his head. "No. You wouldn't do for Alviry. She said to
get Doc. Parker, and a sunstroke ain't going to change her none. But if
she likes your looks she'll probably try you next time. Tumble fond of
experiments is Alviry--hi! giddap!" He slapped his horse more forcibly
with the loose reins and settled into, mournful silence.

"Going to put up at the Imperial?" he asked after a long and peaceful
pause.

"I want to put up somewhere where I can get a good meal and get it
quickly."

The mournful Jehu shook his head gloomily.

"You won't get that at the Imperial."

"Where had I better go?"

"There ain't any other place to go--not to speak of."

The doctor let fall a fiery exclamation.

"What say?"

"I said that it must be a queer town."

"I'm a little hard of hearing, now and agin. But I gather you're not a
church-going man. It's a great church-going place, is Coombe. Old Doc.
Simmonds was a Methody. We were kind of hoping the next one might be a
change. There's two churches of Presbyterians and they're tumble folk
for hanging together."

The doctor laughed. "Thanks for the tip. I'll remember. Coombe is
considered a healthy place, isn't it?"

"Danged healthy."

The commiseration in the other's tone lent to the simple question such
an obvious meaning that the doctor hardly knew whether to be amused
or annoyed.

"Heavens, man! I'm not an undertaker. I asked because I'm rather rocky
myself. That is, partly, why I'm here."

The mournful one nodded. "Good a reason as any," he assented sadly.

"By the way--er--there used to be a Dr. Coombe here, didn't there?
Didn't he live somewhere hereabouts?"

The sad one turned his meditative eyes from their focus upon the horse's
back and rested them upon the open and guileleas face by his side. Then
from deep down in his brawny throat came a sudden sound. It was
unmistakably a chuckle. Without the slightest trace of an accompanying
smile, the sound was startling.

"What's the matter?" asked the doctor irritably.

"Nothing. Only when anybody's seen Esther, they always start asking
about old Doc. Coombe. It gives them a kind of opening. Yes, that's the
old Coombe place--over there. The one with the fir trees and the big elm
by the gate."

"A pleasant house," said Callandar in a detached voice.

"So-so. The old Doc. uster putter around considerable. But they say his
widow isn't doing much to keep it up. Tumble flighty woman, so they say.
Young, you know, just about young enough to be the old Doc.'s
daughter--"

"But--"

"Oh! Esther ain't her child. Esther's ma died when she was a baby. There
is a child, though, Jane they call her, a pindling little thing. But
p'r'aps you've met Jane too?"

"I did not say--"

"No, but I thought likely if you'd met one, you'd have met the other.
Jane's nearly always hanging around Esther 'cept in school hours. Awful
fond of Esther she is. Folks say that Esther's more of a mother to Jane
than her own ma. But I dunno. Alviry says it's a shame the way Esther's
put upon; all the cares of the house when she had ought to be playing
with her dolls. Stepmother with 'bout as much sense as a fly. Old Aunt
Amy, nice sort of soul but--" he touched his head significantly and
heaved the heaviest sigh yet.

"Do you mean to say that there is an aunt who isn't quite sane?" asked
Callandar, surprised.

"_I_ don't say so. Some folks does. Alviry says she's a whole lot wiser
than some of the rest of us."

From the tone of this remark it was evident that Alviry's observation
had been intended personally. Callandar choked back a laugh.

"What say?" asked the other suspiciously.

"I said, rather hard luck for a young girl."

The mournful one nodded and relapsed into melancholy. The doctor
turned his attention to the house which a flicker of the whip had
pointed out. It was long and low, with wide verandas and a somewhat
neglected-looking lawn. At one side an avenue of lilacs curved, and on
the other stood a stiff line of fir trees. The front of the house was
well shaded by maples and near the gate stood a giant elm-tree, around
the trunk of which ran a circular seat. It all looked cool, green and
inviting. As the old horse walked sedately past, a woman's figure came
out of one of the long windows and flung itself lightly, yet, even at
that distance, with a certain suggestion of impatience, into one of the
veranda chairs.

"That'll be Mrs. Coombe now," volunteered his informant. "Tumble saucy
way she has of flinging herself around--jes' like a young girl! Mebby
you can see what sort of dress she's got on. Alviry'll be int'rested
to know."

"It's too far off," said Callandar, amused. "All I can see is that the
lady is wearing something white."

"Went out of weeds right on the dot, she did! It's not much over a year
since the old Doc. died. Esther's still wearing some of her black, but
jes' to wear them out, not as symbols. Mrs. Coombe's got a whole new
outfit, Alviry says. Turrible extravagant! Folks says it takes Esther
all her time paying for them with her school money. But I dunno.
What say?"

"I didn't say anything. But, since you ask, do you think all this is any
of my business?"

"Well, since you ask, it ain't. 'Tisn't my business either; but it kind
of passes the time. Giddap!"

Perhaps the old horse knew he was getting near the end of his journey
for, contrary to expectation, he did "giddap" with a jerk which nearly
unseated the doctor and caused a flicker of mild surprise to flit across
the sad one's face.

"Turrible fast horse, this," he confided, "all you got to do is to get
him going."

"Don't let me take you out of your way. If you'll tell me the
direction--"

"Sit still, stranger. I'm going right past the Imperial. Hardly any
place in Coombe you can go without going past the Imperial. It's what
you call a kind of newclus."

As he spoke, the horse, now going at a fairly respectable rate, turned
into the main street of the town; a main street, thriftily prosperous
but now somewhat a-doze in the sun. Half-way down, the intelligent
animal stopped with another jerk for which the doctor was equally
ill-prepared. Before them stood a modest red brick building, three
stories in height, with a narrow veranda running across the lowest story
just one step up from the pavement. On the veranda were green chairs and
in the chairs reclined such portion of the male Coombers as could do so
without fear and without reproach. Along the top of the veranda was a
large sign displaying the words, "HOTEL IMPERIAL."

Callandar alighted nimbly from the democrat, that being the name of the
light spring wagon in which he had travelled, and shook his good
Samaritan by the hand. "Thank you very much," he said, "and I sincerely
hope that the sunstroke will not have terminated fatally by the time you
reach home."

The deep-set eyes turned to him slowly and again he fancied a twinkle in
their mournfulness. "If it does," said the sad one tranquilly, "it will
be the first time it ever has--giddap!"

As no one came forth to take his knapsack, Callandar slung it over his
shoulder and entered the hotel. The parting remark of his conductor had
left a smile upon his lips, which smile still lingered as he asked the
sleepy-looking clerk for a room, and intimated that he would like lunch
immediately.

"Dining room closed," said that individual shortly.

"What do you mean?"

"Dining room closes at two; supper at six."

"Do you mean to say that you serve nothing between the hours of two and
six?"

"Serve you a drink, if you like," with an understanding grin at his
questioner's dusty knapsack.

Forgetting that he had become a Presbyterian, the doctor made a few
remarks, and from his manner of making them the clerk awoke to the fact
that knapsacks do not a hobo make nor dusty coats a tramp. Now in Canada
no one is the superior of any one else, but that did not make a bit of
difference in the startling change of demeanour which overtook the
clerk. He straightened up. He removed his toothpick. He arranged the
register in his best manner and chose another nib for his pen. When
Callandar had registered, the clerk was very sorry indeed that the hotel
arrangements were rather arbitrary in the matter of meal hours. He was
afraid that the kitchen fires were down and everything cold. Still if
the gentleman would go to his room, he would see what could be done--

The gentleman went to his room; but in no enviable frame of mind. So
wretched was his plight that he was not above valuing the covert
sympathy of the small bell-boy who preceded him up the oilclothed
stairs. He was a very round boy: round legs, round cheeks, round head
and eyes so round that they must have been special eyes made on purpose.
There was also a haunting resemblance to some other boy! Callandar
taxed his memory, and there stole into it a vision of a pool with
willows. He chuckled.

"Boy," he said, "have you a little brother who is very fond of going to
school?"

"Nope," said the boy. (It seemed to be a family word.) "I've got a
brother, but he don't sound like that."

"You ought to be in school yourself, boy. What's your name?"

"Zerubbabel Burk."

"Is that all?"

"Yep. Bubble for short."

"Have you ever known what it is to be hungry?"

"Three times a day, before meals!"

"Well, I'm starving. Do you belong to the Boy Scouts?"

"Betyerlife."

"Well, look here. I am an army in distress. Commissariat cut off,
extinction imminent! Now you go and bring in the provisions. And, as we
believe in honourable warfare, pay for everything you get, but take no
refusals--see?" He pressed a bill into the boy's ready hand and watched
the light of understanding leap into the round eyes with pleasurable
anticipation.

"I get you, Mister! Here's your room, number fourteen."

The boy disappeared while still the key with its long tin label was
jingling in the lock. The doctor opened the door of room number fourteen
and went in.

Rooms, we contend, like people, should be considered in relation to that
state in which it has pleased Providence to place them. To consider
number fourteen in any environment save its own would be manifestly
unfair since, in relation to all the other rooms at the Imperial,
number fourteen was a good room, perhaps the very best. A description
tempts us, but perhaps its best description is to be found in its effect
upon Dr. Callandar. That effect was an immediate determination to depart
by the next train, provided the next train did not leave before he had
had something to eat.

He was aroused from gloomy musings by a discreet tap announcing the
return of the scouting party. The scouting party was piled with parcels
up to its round eyes and from the parcels issued an odour so delicious
that the doctor's depression vanished.

"Good hunting, eh?"

"Prime, sir. 'Tisn't store stuff, either! As soon as I see that look in
your eye I remembered 'bout the tea-fight over at Knox's Church last
night and how they'd be sure to be selling off what's left, for the
benefit of the heathen." The boy gave the roundest wink Callandar had
ever seen and deposited his parcels upon the bed. "They always have
'bout forty times as much's they can use. Course I didn't get you any
_broken_ vittles," he added, noticing the alarm upon the doctor's face.
"It's all as good as the best. Wait till you see!"

He began to clear the wash-stand in a businesslike manner, talking all
the time. "This here towel will do for a cloth. It's bran' clean--cross
my heart! I borrowed a dish or two offen the church. They know me....
We'll put the chicken in the middle and the ham along at this end and
the pie over there where it can't slip off--"

"I don't like pie, boy."

"I do. Pie's good for you. We'll put the beet salad by the chicken and
the cabbage salad by the ham and the chow-chow betwixt 'em. Then the
choc'late cake can go by the pie--"

"Boy, I don't like chocolate cake."

"Honest? Ah, you're kiddin' me! Really? Choc'late cake's awful good for
you. I love chocolate cake. This here cake was made by Esther Coombe's
Aunt Amy--it's a sure winner! Say, Mister, what do you like anyway?"

"Ever so many more things than I did yesterday. By Jove, that chicken
looks good!"

"Yep. That's Mrs. Hallard's chicken. I thought you'd want the best. She
ris' it herself. And made the stuffin' too."

"Did she 'ris' the ham also?"

"Nope. It's Miss Taylor's ham. Home cured. The minister thinks a whole
lot of Miss Taylor's curin'. Ma thinks that if Miss Taylor wasn't quite
so hombly, minister might ask her jest on account of the ham. You try
it--wait a jiffy till I sneak some knives!"

Callandar looked at the decorated wash-stand and felt better. He had
forgotten all about the room, and when the knives came, in even less
than the promised jiffy, he forgot everything but the varied excellences
of the food before him. The chicken was a chicken such as one dreams of.
The salads were delicious, the homemade bread and butter fresh and
sweet; the ham might well cause feelings of a tender nature towards its
curer! The chocolate cake? He thought he might try a small piece and,
having tried, was willing to make the attempt on a larger scale. The boy
was a most efficient waiter, discerning one's desires before they were
expressed. But when they got to the pie, the doctor drew up another
chair at the pie side of the table and waved the waiter into it.

There was no false modesty about the boy; neither did he hold malice. If
he had felt slightly aggrieved at not having been invited earlier, he
forgot it after the first mouthful and for a time there was no further
conversation in number fourteen. The doctor had temporarily discarded
his theory that it is better to rise from the table feeling slightly
hungry. The boy had never had so foolish a theory to discard. The
chicken, the ham, the pie, disappeared as if conjured away. The boy
grew rounder.

"Boy," said the doctor at last, "hadn't you better stop? You are
'swelling wisibly afore my werry eyes!'"

The boy shook his head, but presently he began to have intervals when he
was able to speak.

"Better plant all you can," he advised. "Ma says the grub here would
kill a cat. I eat at home. Ma wouldn't risk my stomach here.
It's fierce."

"But I'll have to eat, boy. Isn't there another hotel?"

"Yep; two. But you couldn't go to them. This here's the only decent one.
Gave you a nice room anyway." He looked around admiringly. "Going to
stay long?"

"No--that is, yes--I don't know! How can I stay if I can't eat?"

The boy picked his round white teeth thoughtfully with a pin.

"You might get board somewheres."

This was a new idea.

"Why--so I might! Does Mrs. Hallard who raises chickens or Miss
What's-her-name who cures ham, keep boarders?"

"Nope. But they're not the only oysters in the soup--There's the bell!
They never give a man a minute's peace. Say, if you don't really like
that pie, don't waste it--see? Tell you about boarding-houses later."

Callandar had to clear the table himself. This he did by the simple
expedient of putting everything on top of everything else. But he did
not waste anything, a precaution whose value he realised that night upon
returning from the dining room where he had spent some time in looking
at that repast known to the Imperial as supper. Bubble, the bell boy,
found him with his mind made up.

"Boy," he said, "you have saved my life. But I fear I can sojourn no
longer in your delightful town. Find me the first train out in the
morning.".

The boy's face fell.

"Ain't you going to stay? Why, it's all over town that you're the new
doctor come to take old Doc. Simmonds's practice. Mournful Mark, that
you drove up with, told it. He said he shouldn't wonder if you're real
clever. Says he suspects you're an old friend of Doc. Coombe's
folks--went to college with the doctor, mebby. Says that likely Alviry
will have you next time she gets a stroke."

"Tempting as the prospect is, boy, I fear ..."

"Oh, dang it! There's the bell again."

He darted out, bumped down the sounding stairs and, while the doctor was
still considering the words of his ultimatum, appeared again at the
door, this time decorously on duty.

"A call for you, sir," said Bubble primly.

"A--what?"

"A call, sir. Mrs. Sykes wants to know if the new doctor will call
'round first thing in the morning to see Mrs. Sykes's Ann. She dunno,
but she thinks it's smallpox."

"Quit your fooling, boy."

"Cross my heart, doctor!"

"Smallpox?"

"Oh!" cheerfully, "I don't cross my heart to that. Mrs. Sykes always
thinks things is smallpox. Ann's had smallpox several times now. But the
rest is on the level. What message, sir?"

Callandar hesitated. (And while he hesitated the Fateful Sisters
manipulated a great many threads very swiftly.) "What train ..." he
began. (The Fateful Sisters slipped a bobbin through and tied a cunning
knot.) Without knowing why, Callandar decided to stay. He laughed.
Bubble stood eagerly expectant.

"Tell Mrs. Sykes I'll come, and ..." but Bubble did not wait for the
end of the message.




CHAPTER IV


Coombe is a pretty place. It has broad streets, quiet and tree-lined. It
has sunny, empty lots where children play. No one is crowded or shut in.
The houses stand in their own green lawns, and are comfortable and even
picturesque. The Swiss chalet style has not yet come to Coombe, so the
architecture, though plain, is not productive of nightmare. The roads
are like country roads, soft and yellowish; green grass grows along the
sides of many of them, and board sidewalks are still to be found,
springy and easy to the tread. There is a main street with macadamised
roadway and stone pavements, real flat stone, for they were laid before
the appearance of the all-conquering cement. There is a postoffice with
a tower and a clock, a courthouse with a fountain and a cannon, a park
with a bandstand and a baseball diamond, a townhall with a belfry and no
bell, an exhaustive array of churches, the Imperial Hotel, and the
market. We mention the market last (as we were taught at school) because
on account of its importance it ought to come first.

When Dr. Callandar, having been efficiently valeted by Bubble, set out
to pay his first professional call, he drew in deep breaths of the
pleasant air with a feeling of well-being to which he had long been a
stranger. He had slept. In spite of the room, in spite of the chocolate
cake, in spite of the pie, he had slept. And that alone was enough to
make the whole world over. It was still hot but with a heat different
from the heat of yesterday. A little shower had fallen during the night.
There was a sense of the north in the air, a light freshness, very
invigorating. He liked the quiet shaded streets; the cannon by the
courthouse amused him; the number of church steeples left him amazed. He
felt as if he had stumbled into a dream-town and must walk carefully
lest he stumble out.

Bubble had given him very complete directions, indeed so minute were
they that we will omit them lest some day you find the way yourself and
drop in on Mrs. Sykes when she is not expecting company. But Dr.
Callandar in his amused absorption had forgotten that he was going to
Mrs. Sykes at all, when he was recalled to a sense of duty by a sharp
hail from the corner house of a street he had just passed. Looking back,
he saw, half-way down the road, a tall, red woman leaning over a gate,
who, upon attracting his attention, began waving her arms frantically,
after the manner of an old-fashioned signalman inviting a train to "Come
on." Callandar's step quickened in spite of himself and he forgot his
idle musings.

"Land sakes! I thought you'd never get here!" exclaimed the red woman
fervently. "I suppose that imp of a boy didn't direct you right. Lucky I
knew you as soon as you passed the corner. Mark Morrison may be as
useless as they make 'em, but he's got a fine gift for description. Come
right in. I'm dreadful anxious about Ann. It don't seem like measles,
and she's had chicken-pox twice, and if she's sickening for anything
worse I want to know it. I ain't one of them optimists that won't
believe they're sick till they're dead. Callandar's your name, Mark
says--any chance of your being a cousin to Dr. Callandar of Montreal
that cured Mrs. Sowerby?"

"No, I am not that Dr. Callandar's cousin."

"I told Mark 'twasn't likely--or you wouldn't be here. Not if he'd any
family feeling. I'm a great believer in a man making his own
stepping-stones anyway," she went on with a friendly smile; "we ought to
rise up on ourselves, like the poet says, and not on our cousins."

"A noble sentiment," said Callandar gravely, as he followed her up the
walk, across a veranda so clean that one hesitated to step on it, and
into a small hall, bare and spotless, where he was invited to hang
up his hat.

"You're younger than I expected," went on Mrs. Sykes kindly. "I hope you
ain't entirely dependent on your practice in Coombe?"

The amazed doctor was understood to murmur something about "private
means."

"That's good. You'd starve if you hadn't. Coombe's a terrible healthy
place and poor Doc. Simmonds didn't pay a call a week. I just felt like
some one ought to warn you. I despise folks who hold back from telling
things because they ain't quite pleasant. Know the worst, I always say;
it's better in the end. Of course, as Mark says, your being a
Presbyterian will make considerable diff'rence. Some folks thought Doc.
Simmonds was pretty nigh an infiddle!"

Too overcome by his feelings to answer, Callandar followed her up the
narrow stair and into a clean bright room with green-tinted walls and
yellow matting on the floor.

Mrs. Sykes waved a deprecatory hand, at once exhibiting and apologising
for so much splendour.

"This is the spare-room," she explained. "And there," pointing to the
high, old-fashioned bed, "is Ann."

Callandar crossed the immaculate matting gingerly, taking Ann on faith,
as it were, for, from the door, no; Ann was visible, only a very small
dent in the big whiteness of the bed.

"Ann! Here's the doctor!"

A small black head and a pair of frightened black eyes appeared for a
moment as if by conjuration, and instantly vanished.

"Ann!" said Mrs. Sykes more sternly.

There was a squirming somewhere under the bedclothes, but nothing
happened.

"Great Scott!" exclaimed the doctor, "you've got the child in a
feather-bed!"

Mrs. Sykes beamed complacently.

"Yes, I have. It may seem like taking a lot of trouble for nothing, but
you never can tell. I ain't one of them that never prepares for
anything. Jest as soon as Ann gets sick I move her right into the
spare-room and put her into the best feathers. Then if she should be
took sudden I wouldn't have anything to regret. The minister and the
doctor can come in here any hour and find things as I could wish....
Ann! what do you mean by wiggling down like that? Ann--come up at once!
The doctor wants to see your tongue."

This time the note of command was effective. The black head came to the
surface, again followed by the frightened eyes and plump little cheeks
stained with feverish red.

"Some cool water, if you please," ordered the doctor in his best
professional manner. Mrs. Sykes opened her lips to ask why, but
something caused her to shut them without asking.

When she had left the room, Callandar leaned suddenly over and lifted
Ann bodily out of the dent and placed her firmly upon a pillow. It was a
very plump pillow, evidently filled with the "best feathers," but
compared with the bed it was as a rock in an ocean.

"Now," he said gravely, "you are safe, for the present. You are on an
island; but be very careful not to slide off for if you do I may never
be able to look at your tongue."

The child's hands grasped the island convulsively.

"Don't hold on like that," he warned. "You might tip." He leaned close
so that she might see the smile in his eyes, "And if you tipped ..."

The child gave a sudden delighted giggle. "I'd go right in over my head,
wouldn't I?"

"Yes. And next time you were rescued you might feel more inclined to
tell your aunt what you had been eating before you became ill."

Ann stopped giggling.

"You don't need to tell _me_," went on the doctor, "because I know!"

"How d'ye know?"

"Magic. Be careful--you were nearly off that time! Does your aunt know
anything about those things you ate?"

"No."

"Very well. But you must promise not to eat those particular things
again. Not even when you get the chance." Then as he saw the woe upon
her face, "At least, not in quantities!"

"Cross my heart!" said Ann, relieved.

"Here's the water," said Mrs. Sykes, returning. "Ann, get right back
into bed. Do you want to get your death? Haven't I told you till I'm
tired to keep your hands in? Is it measles, Doctor? She's subject to
measles. Perhaps it's the beginning of scarlet fever. But if it's
smallpox I want to know. No good ever comes of smoothing things over."

The doctor smiled at Ann.

"It isn't smallpox this time, Mrs. Sykes."

"Did you look at them spots on the back of her neck?"

"Yes. A little rash caused by indigestion. I wouldn't worry."

"Don't mind me. I'm used to worrying. I don't dodge my troubles like
some I know. Indigestion? It looks more like eczema. Eczema is a
terrible trying thing. But if the child's got it I don't want it called
indigestion to spare my feelings."

"But it's not eczema! It's indigestion--and prickly heat. I'm afraid
Ann's stomach has been giving trouble. It has been hotter than is usual
here, I understand. Heat often upsets children. While I write out a
prescription, you might bathe her face and hands."

Mrs. Sykes gazed doubtfully at the water. "She was done once last night
and once this morning just before you came in," she remarked in an
injured tone. "But if you think she needs it again, this sort of water's
no good. Nothing's ever any good for Ann except hot water and soap."

The doctor looked up from his writing in surprise. Then as the meaning
of the thing dawned upon him, he laughed heartily.

"Oh, Ann's as clean as the veranda floor!" he explained. "This is just
to cool her off. Let me show you--doesn't that feel nice, Ann?"

"Lovely!" blissfully.

Mrs. Sykes sniffed.

"I suppose that's some new-fangled notion? I never heard before of
cooling people off when they've got a fever. In my time, the hotter you
were, the hotter you were made to be, till you got cool naturally. I
suppose," with half-interested sarcasm, "that you'd give her cold water
to drink if she asked for it?"

"Certainly."

"Well, I expect she knows better than to ask for it!"

Feeling Ann's imploring gaze, Callandar resorted to diplomacy.

"The fact is, Mrs. Sykes," he said pleasantly, "there really isn't very
much wrong with Ann. You have been letting your forethought and your
natural anxiety run away with you. There is not the slightest occasion
for alarm. If there were, I should not dream of hiding it from one so
well-prepared as yourself. As it is, you have taken a lot of needless
trouble--this beautiful feather-bed, for example! I feel sure that Ann
would do very well in her own bed."

The victim of the feathers gave a relieved gasp which her aunt mistook
for a sigh of regret.

"Her own bed's well enough for anything ordinary," she admitted in a
mollified tone. "Even if it is a store mattress."

"Quite good enough. Many a little girl would be glad of it." The
doctor's tone was virtuous. "If you will allow me, I shall carry her in
now. You see, she is cooler already. By to-morrow, if she takes her
medicine, she ought to be as well as ever."

Ann's own room turned out to be on the shady side, and though not so
grand as the spare-room, it was pleasantly cool. The little bed with the
hard mattress and the snowy counterpane was infinitely to be preferred
to the ocean of feathers, and the rescued maiden lay back on her smaller
pillows with a sigh of gratitude.

"Sure you won't tell?" she whispered as he laid her down.

"Honour bright. Cross my heart! But you must take the medicine. It's
nasty, but not too nasty, and you mustn't squeal--or it will be the
spare-room again. Red cheeks and prickly heat are consequences, but
feather-beds and medicine are retribution."

"That's right, Doctor," said Mrs. Sykes, who had heard the last words.
"There's nothing like a word about retribution when a person's sick. It
helps 'em to realise their state. I don't hold with the light-minded
that want to get away from retribution. Depend upon it, they're the very
folks that's got it coming to them. Yes. No one needs to go around
denying that there's a hell, if their feet are planted upon a rock and
they know they're never going there. It's years now since I've looked
hell in the face and turned my feet the other way. But I do say that if
I'd decided to go straight ahead in the broad and easy path, I wouldn't
try to shut my eyes to the end of it, like some folks! Are you putting
up at the Imperial, Doctor?"

"'Putting up' exactly expresses my condition."

"Well, you may as well know at once that a doctor in a hotel will never
get any forwarder in Coombe. You'll have to get boarding somewhere. Have
you looked around yet?"

"No. I--"

"Then I don't mind telling you that the spare-room is to let and the
little room down below that has a door of its own and seems made exactly
for a doctor's office. I shouldn't mind letting you have them if you
feel sure that the smells wouldn't get loose all through the house and
in the cooking. There's a barn where you could keep your horse."

"I haven't got a horse," protested Callandar feebly.

"But of course you'll be getting one. A doctor has to have a horse. If
you can't pay for it down, Mark knows some one who'd let you have a good
one on time. You can trust Mark, if he _is_ mournful. Of course I don't
say that these rooms are the only rooms to let in Coombe, but I do think
they're about as good as you can get--being so near to Dr. Coombe's old
house. People get used to coming for a doctor down this street."

"But that was, over a year ago."

"It takes more 'an a year for Coombe folks to change their ways. Only
this day week I saw Bill Brooks tearing down this way on account of Mrs.
Brooks' being took kind of unexpected, and Bill losing his head and
forgetting all about Dr. Coombe being dead and Dr. Parker living on the
other side of the town."

"And you think that if I'd been here he would have 'tore' in here?"

"If he hadn't I'd just have called out to him as he went by. He was that
wild he'd have taken anybody."

"I see," with humility. "I lost a good chance there!"

"Well, if you live here you'll get others. Why, from the spare-room
windows you can see the corner window down at the Coombe place. I could
make out to let you have your meals, too. Only I'd expect you to be as
reg'lar as Providence permitted. I know a doctor is bound to be more
aggravating in that way than other folks, but if you'd be as regular as
lay in you, I'd put up with it. 'Tisn't as if I wasn't always prepared.
When will you want to move in?"

"Really, I--I don't know--" The bewildered Callandar glanced for help to
Ann, but met only clasped hands and an imploring stare. "I'll--I'll let
you know," he faltered.

Thinking it over afterwards, he could never understand why he did not
promptly refuse to be coerced, but at the time surrender seemed the only
natural thing. Besides, he couldn't stay another day at the Imperial. He
had to go somewhere. Perhaps it was his destiny to secure Ann against
further feather-beds. Anyway, he accepted it.

"Oh, goody!" cried Ann, clapping her hands.

"Ann! put your hands under those clothes. How often must I tell you that
you'll get your death? If you like, Doctor, there's nothing to prevent
your moving in to-morrow. I'll need a day to air the feather-tick and
make some pie."

The doctor was at last roused to action.

"There are conditions," he said hastily. "If I come here, there is to be
no feather-tick and no pie!"

"No feather-bed?" in amazement.

"No pie?" Ann's voice was a sorrowful whisper.

"You see," Callandar explained, "I am here partly for my health. My
health cannot lie on feather-beds nor eat pie--well, perhaps," with a
glance at Ann, "an occasional pie may do no harm. But I shall send down
some springs and a mattress. I have to use a special kind," hastily.

"Oh! it's spinal trouble, is it?" Mrs. Sykes surveyed him
commiseratingly. "You look straight enough. But land! You never can
tell. Them spinal troubles are most deceiving. Terrible things they are,
but they don't shorten life as quickly as some others. Not that that's a
blessing! Mostly, folks as has them would be glad to go long before they
are took. Still, it gives them some time to be prepared. I remember--"

"I must go now, Mrs. Sykes. Give Ann some of the medicine as soon as it
comes. It isn't exactly spinal trouble that is the matter with me, you
know, but--er--I'll send down the kind of mattress I like. In fact, I
shall probably wish to furnish my rooms myself. You won't mind,
I'm sure."

"Land sakes, no, I don't mind! Most doctors are finicky. Don't worry
about the medicine. I'll see that Ann takes it."

She watched him go with a glance in which satisfaction and foreboding
mingled. "Poor young feller!" she mused. "He didn't like what I said
about his spine a mite. Back troubles makes folks terrible touchy."




CHAPTER V


Two days after the installation of what Mrs. Sykes persisted in calling
the "spinal mattress," Esther Coombe was late in getting home from
school. As was usually the case when this happened, Jane, designated by
mournful Mark as "the Pindling One," was sitting on the gatepost gazing
disconsolately down the road. There were traces of tears upon her thin
little face and the warmth of the hug which returned her sister's
greeting was evidence of an unusually disturbed mind.

"Why aren't you playing with the other children, Jane?"

"I don't want to play, Esther. Timothy's dead."

"Yes, I know, dear. But Fred has promised you a new puppy--"

"I don't want a new puppy. I want Timothy."

"But Timothy is so much happier, Jane. He was old, you know. In the
Happy Hunting Grounds, he will be able to frisk about just like other
dogs. Wouldn't you like an apple?"

Jane considered this a moment and decided favourably. But her tale of
woe was not yet complete. "Mother's ill again," she announced gloomily.
"I mustn't play band or nail the slats on the rabbits' hutch. Aunt Amy
gave me my dinner on the back porch. I liked that. I wouldn't go in the
house, not till you came, Esther."

The straight brows of the elder sister came together in a worried frown.

"You know that is being silly, Jane."

"I don't care."

"You must learn to care. Run now and get the apple and ask Aunt Amy to
wash your face."

Jane tripped away obediently, her griefs assuaged by the mere telling of
them, and Esther passed into the house by way of the veranda. It was a
charming veranda, long and low, opening through French windows directly
into the living room which, like itself, was long and low, and charming.
There is a charm in rooms which can be felt but not described. It exists
apart from the furnishings and even the occupants; it is an essence,
haunting, intangible--the soul of the room! only there are many rooms
which have no soul.

Through the living room at the Elms vagrant breezes entered, loitered,
and drifted out again, leaving behind them scents of sun-warmed flowers.
The light there was soft and green. The comfortable chairs invited rest;
the polished rosewood table, the bright piano shining in the brightest
corner, the smooth old floor in whose rug the colours had long ceased to
trouble, the general air of much used comfort, satisfied and refreshed.

Esther loved the room. Her first childish memory was of the rosewood
table shining like a pool in the lamplight and of her own wondering face
reflected in it, with her father's laughing eyes behind. In every way it
was associated with the beginnings of things. The magic of all music
began for her in the sweet, thin notes of the old square piano; the key
to fairy land lay hidden somewhere in that shelf of well-worn books.

Yet to-night she entered with a hesitating step. It was obvious that she
felt no pleasure in the cool greenness. The room was the same room but
it was as if the expression on a well-known face had unaccountably
changed and become forbidding. The girl sighed as she flung her hat
upon a chair.

"Esther," Jane's voice, somewhat obscured by the eating of the promised
apple, came through the open window, "are you sure about Timothy being
in the Happy Hunting Grounds?"

"Of course, dear."

"But he wasn't what you would call a Christian, Esther?"

"He was a good dog."

"Can Timothy chase chickens there?"

"Probably."

"And cats?"

"Certainly cats."

"Is that what happens to bad cats when they die?"

Esther viewed this logical picture of everlastingly pursued cats with
some dismay.

"N-o. I don't suppose it would be real cats."

"But Tim wouldn't chase anything but real cats."

"Jane, I wish you wouldn't talk with your mouth full."

Being thus reduced to giving up the argument or the apple, Jane
abandoned the former. It was clear that Esther was not in the mood for
argument. The child's quick observation had not failed to note the
lagging step, nor the quick sigh. She nodded her head as if in answer to
some spoken word.

"Yes, I know. I feel like that, too. That's why I didn't come in before;
that's why I'm not really in yet. It catches you by the throat and makes
you breathe funny. What is it, Esther?"

"Why--I don't know, Jane. It's loneliness I think--missing Dad."

The child shook her head. But whatever her objection might have been it
was beyond her power of expression. She slid off the veranda step and
wandered back into the garden. There was another apple in the pocket of
her apron, and apples are great comforters.

Left alone, Esther with a resolutely cheerful air took down a blue bowl
and proceeded to arrange therein the day's floral offerings. A sweet and
crushed mixture they were, pansies, clove-pinks, mignonette, bleeding
hearts, bachelors' buttons, all short stemmed and minus any saving touch
of green, but true love offerings for all that. Wordless gifts most of
them, prim little bunches, hot from tight clasping in chubby hands,
shyly and swiftly deposited on "Teacher's desk" when the back of that
divinity was turned. The blue bowl took kindly to them all, and as the
girl's clever fingers settled and arranged the glowing chaos it seemed
that with their crushed fragrance something of the lost spirit of the
room came back. Just so had she arranged hundreds of times the sweet
smelling miscellanies which had been her father's constant tribute from
grateful patients.

She had almost finished when the door opened to admit a little, grey
wisp of a woman with a mild white face and large faded eyes which might
once have been beautiful. She was dressed entirely in lavender, a
fondness for this colour being one of the many harmless fancies born of
a brain not quite normal. The rather expressionless face brightened at
sight of the girl by the table.

"Why, Esther--I didn't hear you come in. Have you put a mat under the
bowl? See now! You have marked the table."

Esther good humouredly reached for a table-mat, for the polish of this
particular article of furniture was the pride of Aunt Amy's life. "It's
all right, Auntie. It's not really a mark. Look, aren't they sweet? It
is like one of father's posies. Is mother any better?"

"The children must think a lot of you, Esther!"

"Yes, although I think they would bring flowers to any one, bless 'em!
Is mother--"

"Your mother hasn't been down all day. I went up with her dinner but she
didn't take any. She wouldn't answer."

"Auntie, don't you think she ought to do something about these
headaches?"

"I don't know, Esther. She'll be all right to-morrow. She always is."

"Yes. But they are getting more frequent, and you know--she is so
different. She can't be well. Haven't you noticed it?"

"No," vaguely.

"Well, Jane has. So it can't just be imagination. She ought to consult a
doctor."

"She won't."

"But it's absurd! What shall we do if she goes on like this? If there
were only some one who would talk to her! She won't listen to me because
she is older and married and--all that. All the same she doesn't seem
older when she acts like this--like a child!"

"Well, you know, Esther, there isn't any doctor here that your mother
just fancies."

The girl stooped lower over the blue bowl, perhaps to hide the little
smile which crinkled up the corner of her mouth. The faint colour on her
cheek may have been a reflection from the flowers.

"Yes, but haven't you heard? There is a new doctor. He seems quite
different--I mean they say he is awfully nice. Mrs. Sykes' Ann was
telling me all about him. He is going to board with Mrs. Sykes. The
child just worships him already. Perhaps mother might see him."

"I shouldn't worry," said Aunt Amy placidly. "This pepper-grass will be
very nice for tea. Did you tell Jane she might have two apples, Esther?"

"No. I told her she might have one. But I don't suppose two will hurt
her." Esther was used to Aunt Amy's inconsequences which made impossible
the discussion of any subjects save the most trivial. But she sighed a
little as she realised anew that there was no help here.

"Jane is feeling badly about Timothy," she explained. "Don't you think
we might have tea in here, Auntie? It is so cool."

Aunt Amy, who had been anxiously rubbing an imaginary spot on the table,
looked up with a startled air. "Oh, Esther!" she said, in the voice of a
frightened child. Then with a child's obvious effort to control rising
tears, "Of course, if you say so, Esther. But--but do you feel like
risking the round table? Couldn't we have it on the little table in
the corner?"

The girl settled the last of her flowers and pushed back her hair with a
worried gesture. A pang of mingled irritation and anxiety lent an edge
of sharpness to her soft voice.

"Auntie dear! I thought you had quite forgotten that fancy. You know it
is only a fancy. Round tables are just like other tables. And you
promised me--"

"Yes, I know, but--"

"Well, then, be sensible, dear. We shall have tea in here." Then seeing
the real distress on the timid old face, the girl's mood softened. "No,
we shan't," she declared gaily. "We'll have it as usual in the dining
room. You will fix the pepper-grass and I shall set the table."

But the end of Aunt Amy's vagaries was not yet. She hesitated, flushed
and more timidly, yet as one who is compelled, begged for the task of
setting the table herself. "For you know, Esther, the sprigged tea-set
is so hurt if any one but me arranges it. Yes, of course, it is only a
fancy, I know that. But the sprigged tea-set does feel so badly if I
neglect it. All the pink in it fades quite out. You must have noticed
it, Esther?"

The girl sighed and gave in. Usually Aunt Amy's vagaries troubled her
little. Disconcerting at first, they had quickly become a commonplace,
for the coming of Aunt Amy to the doctor's household had been too great
a blessing to invite criticism. Esther had soon learned to express no
surprise when told that the sprigged china had a heart of extreme
sensitiveness, and that the third step on the front stair disliked to be
trodden upon, and that it was dangerous to sit with one's back to a
window facing the east. All these and numberless other strange facts
were part of Aunt Amy's twilight world. To her they were immensely
important, but to the family the really important thing seemed that,
with trifling exceptions, the new inmate of the household was gentle and
kind; her housekeeping a miracle and her cooking a dream. In the years
she had lived with them there had been but one serious thrill of
anxiety, and that came when Dr. Coombe had discovered her endeavouring
to infect Jane with her delusions. This had been strictly forbidden and
the child's mind, duly warned, was soon safeguarded by her own growing
comprehension. Jane quickly understood that it was foolish to shut the
garden gate three times every time she came through it, and that no one
save Aunt Amy thought it necessary to count all the boards in the
sidewalk or to touch all the little posts under the balustrade as one
came down stairs. Some of the prettier, more elusive fancies she may
have retained, but, if so, they did her no harm.

As for Aunt Amy herself, she lived her shadow-haunted life not
unhappily. Dr. Coombe she had worshipped, yet his death had not affected
her as much as might have been feared. Perhaps it was one of her
compensations that death to her was not quite what it is to the more
normal consciousness. It was noticeable that she always spoke of the
doctor as if he were in the next room. Her devotion to him had been
caused by his success in partially relieving her of the most distressing
burden of her disordered brain--the delusion of persecution. Aunt Amy
knew that somewhere there existed a mysterious power known vaguely as
"They" who sought unceasingly to injure her. Of course it was only once
in a while that "They" got a chance, for Aunt Amy was very clever in
providing no opportunities. More than once had she outwitted "Them."
Still, one must be always upon one's guard! From this harrowing delusion
the doctor had done much to deliver her, indeed she had become more
normal in every way under his care. It was only now, a year after his
death, that Esther imagined sometimes that there was a slipping back--

The ill effects of sitting at a round table, for instance? It was a long
time since this particular fancy had been spoken of and Esther had
considered it gone altogether. Yet here it was, cropping out again and
just at a time when other problems threatened. Things seemed determined
to be difficult to-day.

The fact was that Esther was suffering from the need of a confidant.
Really worried as she felt about her step-mother's health, the burden of
taking any determined action against the wishes of the patient herself
was a serious one for a young girl. Yet in whom could she confide? Girl
friends she had in plenty but not one whose judgment she could trust
before her own. Had the minister been an older man or a man of different
calibre she might have gone to him, but the idea of appealing to Mr.
Macnair was distasteful. Neither among her father's friends was there
one to whom she cared to go for advice concerning her father's widow.
They had one and all disapproved, she knew, of the sudden second
marriage and Dr. Coombe had never quite forgiven their disapproval.

Often she felt like refusing the responsibility altogether. After all,
her step-mother was a woman quite old enough to manage her own affairs.
If she wished to foolishly imperil her health why need Esther care? Why
indeed? But this train of reasoning never lasted long. Always there came
a counter-question, "If you do not care, who will?" And the dearth of
any answer settled the burden more firmly upon her rebellious shoulders.
For one thing there was always the inner knowledge that Mary Coombe was
weak and that she, Esther, was strong. She had always known this. Even
when her father had brought home his pretty bride and Esther, a shy,
silent child of eleven, had welcomed her, she had known that the
newcomer was the weaker spirit. The bride had known it too. She had
never attempted to control Esther, leaving the child entirely to her
father--a bit of unwitting wisdom which did much to smooth daily life
at the Elms. If the doctor saw his wife's weakness of character it is
probable that it did not interfere with his love for her. Why need she
be strong while he was strong enough for two? But he had forgotten one
thing--the day when she would have to be strong alone!

The realisation came to him upon his death-bed. Esther was sure of this.
He could not speak, but she had read the message of his eyes, the appeal
to the strength in her to help the other's weakness. No getting away
from the solemn charge of that entreating look!

       *       *       *       *       *

Esther was thinking of that look now, as she sat alone in the dusk of
the veranda. Tea was over and Aunt Amy was putting Jane to bed. From her
mother she had had no word. Blank silence had met her when she had taken
the tea tray upstairs and called softly through the closed door. Mrs.
Coombe was probably asleep. She would be better to-morrow; but before
long she would be ill again, and the interval between the attacks was
becoming shorter.

There was anger as well as anxiety in the girl's mind. Her healthy and
straightforward youth had little patience with her step-mother's
unreasonable caprices. For her illness she had every sympathy, but for
the morbid nervousness which seemed to accompany it, none at all. These
constant headaches, the increasing nervous irritability from which Mrs.
Coombe suffered lay like a shadow over the house. Yet the sufferer
refused to take the obvious way of relief and persisted in her refusal
with a stubbornness of which no one would have dreamed her light nature
capable. Still, willing or unwilling, something must be done. Aunt Amy,
too, was becoming more of an anxiety. Once or twice lately she had
spoken of "Them," a sign of mental distress which Dr. Coombe had always
treated with the utmost seriousness. Perhaps if a doctor were called in
for Aunt Amy, Mrs. Coombe would lose her foolish dread of doctors and
allow him to prescribe for her also. And if the new doctor were half as
clever as Mrs. Sykes said he was--Esther's heart began to warm a little
as her fancy pictured such a pleasant solution of all her problems. The
little smile curved her lips again as she thought of the maple by the
schoolhouse steps, and the lettuce sandwiches and--and everything. She
closed her eyes and tried to recall his face as he had looked up at her.
Instinctively she knew it for a good face, strong, humorous, kindly, but
strong above all. And it was strength that Esther needed. When she went
to bed that night her burden seemed a little lighter.

I believe he can help me, she thought, and it isn't as if he were quite
a stranger. After all, we had lunch together once!




CHAPTER VI


Undoubtedly Esther slept better that night for the thought of the new
doctor. It cannot be said that the doctor slept better because of her.
In fact he lay awake thinking of her. He did not want to think of her;
he wanted to go to sleep. Twice only had he seen her. Once upon the
occasion of the red pump and once when casually passing her on the main
street. There was no reason why her white-rose face with its strange
blue eyes and its smile-curved lips should float about in the darkness
of Mrs. Sykes' best room. Yet there it was. It was the eyes, perhaps.
The doctor admitted that they were peculiar eyes, startlingly blue. Dark
blue in the shade of the lashes, flashing out light blue fire when the
lashes lifted. But Mrs. Sykes' boarder did not want to think about eyes.
He wanted to go to sleep. He did not want to think about hair either.
Although Miss Coombe had very nice hair--cloudy hair, with little ways
of growing about the temple and at the curve of the neck which a blind
man could not help noticing. In the peaceful shadows of the room it
seemed a still softer shadow framing the vivid girlish face.

Still, on the whole, sleep would have been better company and when at
last he did drop off he did not relish being wakened by the voice of Ann
at his door.

"Doc-ter, doc-ter! Are you awake? Can I come in?"

"I am not awake. Go away."

Ann's giggle came clearly through the keyhole.

"You've got a visitor," she whispered piercingly through the same
medium. "A man. A well man, not a sick one. He came on the train. He
came on the milk train--"

"You may come in, Ann." The doctor slipped on his dressing gown with a
resigned sigh. "What man and why milk?"

"I don't know. Aunt Sykes kept him on the veranda till she was sure he
wasn't an agent. Now he's in the parlour. Aunt hopes you'll hurry, for
you never can tell. He may be different from what he looks."

"What does he look?"

Ann's small hands made an expressive gesture which seemed to envisage
something long and lean.

"Queer--like that. He's not old, but he's bald. His eyes screw into you.
His nose," another formative gesture, "is like that. A nawful big nose.
He didn't tell his name."

"If he looks like that, perhaps he hasn't any name. Perhaps he is a
button-moulder. In fact I'm almost certain he is--other name Willits.
Occupation, professor."

"But if he is a button-maker, he can't be a professor," said Ann
shrewdly.

"Oh, yes he can. Button-moulding is what he professes. His line is a
specialty in spoiled buttons. He makes them over."

"Second-hand?"

"Better than new."

Ann fidgeted idly with the doctor's cuff-links and then with a flash of
her odd childish comprehension, "You love him a lot, don't you?" she
said jealously.

The doctor adjusted a collar button.

"England expects that every man shall deny the charge of loving
another," he said, "but between you and me, I do rather like old
Willits. You see I was rather a worn-out button once and he made me
over. Where did you say he was?"

"In the parlour--there's Aunt! She said I wasn't to stay. I'll get it."

Indeed the voice of Mrs. Sykes could be heard on the stairs.

"Ann! Where's that child? Doctor, you'd think that child had never been
taught no manners. You'll have to take a firm stand with Ann, Doctor.
Land Sakes, I don't want to make her out worse'n she is, but you might
as well know that your life won't be worth living if you don't set
on Ann."

"All right, Mrs. Sykes. Painful as it may be, I shall do it. Are you
sure it's safe to leave a stranger in the parlour?"

Mrs. Sykes looked worried. "I hope to goodness it's all right, Doctor.
He's been in the parlour half an hour. I don't think he's an agent,
hasn't got a case or a book anywhere. But agents are getting cuter every
day. Naturally I didn't like to go so far as to ask his name. And I'm
not asking it now. Curiosity was never a fault of mine though I do say
it. Still a woman does like to know who's setting in her front parlour."

"And you shall," declared Callandar kindly. "Just hang on a few moments
longer, dear Mrs. Sykes, and your non-existent but very justifiable
curiosity shall be satisfied."

The parlour at Mrs. Sykes opened to the right of the narrow hall. Its
two windows, distinguished by eternally half-drawn blinds of yellow,
looked out upon the veranda, permitting a decorous gloom to envelop the
sacred precincts. Mrs. Sykes was too careful a housekeeper to take risks
with her carpet and too proud of her possessions to care to hide their
glories altogether; hence the blinds were never wholly drawn and never
raised more than half way. In the yellow gloom, one might feast one's
eyes at leisure upon the centre table, draped in red damask, mystic,
wonderful, and on its wealth of mathematically arranged books, the
Bible, the "Indian Mutiny" and "Water Babies" in blue and gold. This
last had been a gift to Ann and was considered by Mrs. Sykes to be the
height of foolishness. Still, a book is a book, especially when bound in
blue and gold.

Upon the gaily papered walls hung a framed silver name-plate and two
pictures. One a gorgeously coloured print of the lamented Queen Victoria
in a deep gold frame, and the other a representation of an entrancing
allegorical theme entitled "The Two Paths," illustrating the ascent of
the saint into heaven and the descent of the sinner into hell. At the
top of this picture was the legend, "Which will you choose?"--implying a
possible but regrettable lack of taste on the part of the chooser.

Into this abode of the arts and muses came Callandar, alert and smiling.
It was hardly his fault that he stumbled over the visitor who, whether
in awe or fear of these unveiled splendours, had retreated as far as
possible toward the door.

"Don't mind me!" said the visitor meekly.

"Willits! by Jove, I thought it would be you! Say, would you mind not
sitting on that chair? It's just glued!"

The visitor arose with conspicuous alacrity. He was a tall man with a
domelike head, piercing eyes and formidable nose. Ann's description had
been terribly accurate. He observed the tail of his coat carefully and
finding no damage, seemed relieved.

"Sit here," said Callandar affably. "And don't expect me to make you
welcome, because you aren't. What misfortunate chance has brought you
to Coombe?"

"Neither fortune nor chance had anything at all to do with it," declared
the visitor. "I followed your luggage. I wanted to see you."

"Well, take a good look."

"I think you can guess why."

"Yes," with a sigh. "I was always a good guesser. And, frankly, Willits,
I wish you hadn't."

"I do not doubt it. But, first, is there any other place where we can
talk?"

"Don't you like this?" innocently.

The Button-Moulder's look of surprised anguish was sufficient answer.
Callandar laughed.

"You always were a bit narrow in your views, Willits. How often have I
impressed upon you that beauty depends upon understanding? I don't
suppose you have even tried to understand this room? No? Will it help
any if I tell you that Mrs. Sykes went without a spring bonnet that she
might purchase the deep gold frame which enshrines Victoria the Good, or
if I explain that Joseph Sykes, deceased, whose name you see yonder upon
that engraved plate, was the most worthless rogue unhung. Yet the silver
which displays--"

"Not in the least," interrupted the other hastily. "The place is a
nightmare. Nothing can excuse it! And you--how you stand it I
cannot see."

"My dear man, I don't stand it. I am not allowed to. It's only upon
special occasions that any one is allowed to stand this room. You are a
special occasion. But as you seem so unappreciative we can adjourn to my
office if you wish."

"You have an office?"

"Certainly. A doctor has to have an office. This way."

Callandar strode across the room and opened a door in the opposite wall.
It led into another room, smaller, with no veranda in front of it, yet
with a window looking toward the road and two side windows through which
the after flush of sunrise streamed. Its door opened upon a small stone
stoop set in the grass of the front lawn. The furniture of the room was
plain, not to say severe. Cool matting covered the painted floor,
hemstitched curtains of linen scrim hung at the windows. There was a
businesslike desk, a couch, a reclining chair, a stool by the door;
another chair, straight and uncompromising, behind the desk. That
was all.

Willits looked around him in a kind of dazed surprise. "Office!" he kept
murmuring. "_Office_!"

"All rather plain, you see," said Callandar regretfully. "But for a
beginner with his way to make, not so bad. My patients, three up to
date, quite understand and conceal their commiseration with perfect good
breeding. Also, the room has natural advantages, it is in the nature of
an annex, you see, with a door of its own. Quite cut off from the rest
of the house save-for the door by which we entered, the parlour door,
which Mrs. Sykes informs me I may lock if I choose although she feels
sure that I know her too well to imagine any undue liberties
being taken!"

The Button-Moulder with a gesture of despair made as if to sit down upon
the nearest chair, but was prevented with kindly firmness by his host.

"Not that chair, please. It may not be quite dry. I glued--"

The voice of the visitor suddenly returned. It was a very dry voice;
threadlike, but determined.

"Then if you will kindly find me a chair which you have not glued I
shall sit down and dispose of a few burning thoughts. Callandar, as soon
as you have finished playing the fool--"

"Consider it finished, old man."

"Then what does this, all this"--with a sweeping hand wave--"mean? You
cannot seriously intend to stay here?"

"Why not?"

"Your question is absurd."

"No, it isn't. Let it sink in. Why should I not stay here? Examine the
facts. I am ordered change, rest, interest, good air--a year at least
must elapse before I take up my life again. I must spend that year
somewhere. Why not here? It is healthy, high, piney, quiet. I had become
utterly tired of my tramping tour. All the good I can get from it I have
got. Chance, or whatever you like to call it, leads me to this place. A
place which needs a doctor and which this particular doctor needs. There
is nothing absurd about it."

The tall man observed his friend in interested silence. Apparently he
required time to adjust his mind to the fact that Callandar was in
earnest. The badinage he brushed aside.

"Then you really intend--but how about this office? If it is not a
torn-fool office, where does the necessary rest come in?"

"Rest doesn't mean idleness. I should die of loafing. As a matter of
fact since coming here I have rested as I have not rested for a year.
Look at me! Can't you see it? Or is the renovation not yet visible to
the naked eye? Great Scott! I don't need to vegetate in order to
rest, do I?"

"No." Another pause ensued during which the gimlet eyes of the professor
were busy. Then he seemed suddenly to leap to the heart of the matter.

"And--Lorna?" He asked crisply.

It was the other's turn to be silent. He flushed, looked embarrassed,
and drummed with his fingers upon the table.

"Of course I have no right to ask," added Willits primly.

"Yes, you have, old man. Every right. But I knew you had come to ask
that question and I didn't like it. The answer is not a flattering
one--to me. Nor is it what you expected. To be brief, Lorna won't have
me. Refused me--flat!"

Blank surprise portrayed itself upon the professor's face.

"The devil she did!"

"Confess now!" said Callandar, smiling. "You thought I was the one to
blame? There was retributive justice in your eye, don't deny it!"

"But, I don't understand! I thought--I was sure--"

"I know. But she doesn't! Not in that way. As a sister--"

"That's enough! I--Accept my apology. I feel very sorry, Henry."

Again that look of embarrassment and guilt upon the doctor's face.

"No. Don't feel sorry! See here, let's be frank about the whole thing.
It was a mistake, from the very beginning, a mistake. Miss Sinnet,
Lorna, is a girl in a thousand. But--I did not care for her as a man
should care for the woman he makes his wife. Nor did she care for
me--wait, I'm not denying that there was a chance. We were very
congenial. She might have cared if--if I had cared more greatly."

"Henry Callandar! Are you a cad?"

"No. Merely a man speaking the exact truth. I thought I might risk it,
with you. Lorna Sinnet is not a woman to give her love and take a
half-love in return. She was more clear-sighted than you or I. We should
both have been very miserable."

Elliott Willits sighed. He was a very sensible man. He prided himself
upon being devoid of sentiment, but even the most sensible of men,
entirely devoid of sentiment, do not like to see their well laid
plans go wrong.

"Well," he said, "I was mistaken. Let us say no more about it."

Callandar's eyes softened, melted into misty grey. He laid his arm
affectionately over the other's thin shoulders. "Only this," he said.
"That no man ever had a better friend! I know you, old Button-Moulder. I
know your ambition to make of me a 'shining button on the vest of the
world!' You thought that Lorna might help. But I failed you there. I'm
sorry. That was really the bitterness of the whole thing---to fail you!"

"You owe me nothing," gruffly.

"Only my life--my sanity."

"I shall doubt the latter if you stay here."

"No, you will see it triumphantly vindicated. I tell you I am better
already. Look at my hand! Do you remember how it shook the last time I
held it out for you. A few more months of this and it will be steady as
a rock. Ah! it's good to be feeling fit again! And it isn't only a
physical improvement." His smile faded and rising he began to pace the
room. "I doubt if even you fully understand the mental depression that
was dragging me down. No wonder Lorna would have none of me! Strange,
that I cannot understand my own case as I understand the cases of
others. Do what I would, I could not heal myself, the soul of the matter
persistently escaped me. I was beginning to be as much the victim of an
obsession as any of the poor creatures whom I tried to cure."

"You never told me of that."

"No, I was afraid to speak of it. It would have made it seem more real.
But I can tell you now, if you are sure you will not be bored."

"I shall not be bored," said Willits quietly.




CHAPTER VII


"In order to make you understand, I'll have to go back," said the doctor
musingly, "a long way back. Some of the story you already know, but now
I want you to know it all. But first--when you found me in that
hospital, a useless bit of human wreckage, and forced me back into life
with your scorn of a coward and your cutting words, what did you think?
What did I tell you? It is all hazy to me."

"You told me very little. It was plain enough. You had come a bad
cropper. Some girl, I gathered. You had lost her, you blamed yourself.
You talked a great deal of nonsense. I inferred--the usual thing!"

"You were mistaken. It was at once better and worse than that. But let's
begin at the beginning. My father was a fairly wealthy man--but a
dreamer. He made his money by a clever invention and lost it by an
investment little short of idiotic. Like many unpractical men he had
rather fancied himself as a man of business and the disillusion killed
him. He--shot himself. My mother, my sister and myself were left, with
nothing save a small sum in the bank and the deed of the modest house we
lived in. Adela was twenty-one and I was nineteen. We sold the house,
moved into rooms; Adela learned shorthand and went into an office. I
wanted to do the same. But mother was adamant. I must finish my college
course and take my degree; she and Adela could manage until I could make
it up to them later. It was hard, but it seemed the only sensible
thing to do--

"I faced the task of working my way through college with a thankful
heart, for though I pretended that I did not care, it would have been a
terrible thing to have given up my life's ambition. The thought of Adela
trudging to the office hurt--it was the touch of the spur. I needn't
tell you, you can guess how I worked! People were kind. One summer, old
Doctor Inglis, whose amiable hobby it was to help young medical
students, engaged me for the holidays as his chauffeur and general
helper at a wage which would see me through my next term. It seemed an
unusual piece of luck, for he lived only twenty miles from my mother's
home and an electric tram connected the towns. One night I went with
Adela to a Church Social--of all places--and that is where the story
really begins, for it was at the Social that I met Molly Weston. It
seemed the most casual of all accidents, for you can imagine that I did
not frequent churches in those days, and Molly, too, had come there by
chance. She was dressed in pink, her cheeks were pink, she wore a pink
rose in her hair. She was the prettiest little fairy that ever smiled
and pouted her way into a boy's heart. Before I left her I was madly in
love--a boy's first headlong passion. Adela was amazed, teased me in her
elderly sister way but never for a moment took it seriously. Molly was a
mere bird of passage, an American girl staying with friends for a brief
time, therefore my infatuation was a humorous thing. But it was not so
simple as that. Molly stayed on, Dr. Inglis was indulgent, we met
continually. If her friends knew of it they did not care. It was just a
flirtation of their pretty guest's. As a serious factor I was quite
beneath the horizon, a young fellow working his way through college, and
with, later on, a mother and sister to support.

"Molly understood the situation. At least she knew all the facts. I
doubt if she ever understood them. She was one of those helpless,
clinging girls who never seem to understand anything clearly. I remember
well how I used to agonise in explanation, trying to make her see our
difficulties and to face them with me. But when I had talked myself into
helpless silence she would ruffle my hair and say, 'But you really do
love me, don't you, Harry?' or 'I don't care what we have to do, so long
as mother doesn't know.'

"I soon found out that her one strong emotion was fear of her mother.
She was fond of her but she feared her as weak natures fear the strong,
especially when bound to them by ties of blood. I was allowed to see her
photograph--the picture of a grim hard face instinct with an almost
terrible strength. No wonder my pretty Molly was her slave. One would
have deemed it impossible that they were mother and daughter. Molly, it
appears, was like her father, and he, poor man, had been long dead.
Molly would do anything, promise anything, if only her mother might not
know. She had not the faintest scruple in deceiving her, but this I
laid, and still lay, to the strength of her love for me.

"She did love me. She must have loved me--else how could her timid
nature have taken the risk it did?

"Summer fled by like a flash. Molly stayed with her friends as long as
she could find an excuse and then went on for a brief week in Toronto.
It was the week, of course, that I returned to college. We hoped that
she could extend her stay, but her mother wrote 'Come home,' and there
was no appeal from that. Then I did a desperate thing. Without Molly's
knowledge I wrote to her mother telling her that I loved her daughter
and begging, as a man begs for his life, to be allowed to ask her to
wait for me. The letter was a lie in that it concealed the fact that my
love was already confessed but I felt it necessary to shield Molly. I
received no answer to the letter, but Molly received a telegram, 'Come
home at once.'

"I can leave you to imagine the scene--my despair, Molly's tears! Never
for an instant did she dream of disobeying and I--I felt that if she
went I should lose her forever.

"Willits, there is something in me, devil or angel, which will not give
up. Nothing has ever conquered it yet and Molly was like wax in my
hands--so long as 'Mother' need not know. I do not attempt to excuse
myself; what I did was dastardly, but it did not seem so then. The night
before she left, she stole away from home. I had a license and we were
married by a Methodist minister. He knew neither of us and probably
forgot the whole incident immediately. It was a marriage only in name
for we said good-bye at Molly's door. She left next morning. I never saw
her again."

Into the silence which followed, the professor's words dropped dryly.

"What was your idea in forcing a meaningless marriage?"

"I loved her. I knew that it was the only way. Madly as I loved her, I
knew that Molly was weak as water. I could not, would not, run the risk
of letting her leave me without the legal tie. But I justified it to
myself--I could have justified anything, I fear! I vowed a vow that she
would be repaid for the waiting as never woman yet was paid. She wept on
my shoulder and said, 'And you really do love me, Harry--and you'll
swear mother need never know?'

"I swore it. There were to be no letters. Molly was too terrified to
write and still more terrified of receiving a letter. She would live in
constant dread, she said, if there were a possibility of such a thing.
Weak in everything else she was adamant in this.

"I went back to work. I worked with the strength of ten. Health,
comfort, pleasure, all were subordinated to the fever of work. I hoped
that I might steal a glimpse of her sometimes. She promised to try to
return to Toronto. But my letter must have alarmed the mother. I found
out, indirectly, that shortly after her return, Mrs. Weston whisked her
off to Europe. They were gone a year. When they returned I was in the
far west with a government surveying party, earning something to help me
with my last year's college expenses. When I was again in Toronto she
had vanished. Gone, as I afterward learned, to stay with an aunt in
California. Her mother, alive to danger, was not going to risk a
meeting, and my vow to Molly left me helpless. But how I worked!

"That last year things began to come my way. Adela married a fine young
fellow, wealthy and generous. My mother went to live with them in their
western home, Calgary, where they still are. Then Thomas Callandar, my
mother's brother, who had never bothered about any of us living, died,
and left me a handsome property, adding, as you already know, the
condition that I take the family name. You remember that my father's
name, the name under which I married Molly, was Chedridge.

"Nothing now held me from Molly--in another month I would have my
degree, and free and rich I could go to claim her. It seemed like a
fairy tale! In my great happiness I broke my promise and wrote to her,
to the California address, hoping to catch her there. In three weeks'
time the letter came back from the dead letter office. I wrote again,
this time to the Cleveland address, a short note only, telling her I was
free at last. Then, next day, I followed the letter to Cleveland, wealth
in one hand, the assurance of an honourable degree in the other.

"I had no trouble in finding the house. It was one of a row of houses,
nondescript but comfortable, in a pleasant street. It seemed familiar--I
had seen Molly's snapshots of it often. I cannot tell you what it felt
like to be really there--to walk down the street, up the path, up the
steps to the veranda. I was trembling as with ague, I was chalk-white I
knew--was I not in another moment to see my wife!

"I could hear the electric bell tingle somewhere inside. Then an awful
pause. What if they were not at home? What if they lived there no
longer? I knew with a pang of fear that I could not bear another
disappointment.

"There was a sound in the hall, the door knob moved--the door opened. I
gasped in the greatness of my relief for the face in the opening was
undoubtedly the face of Molly's mother. They were at home. They must
have had my letter--they must be expecting me--

"Something in the woman's face daunted me. It was deathly and strained.
Surely she did not intend to continue her opposition? Yet it confused
me. I forgot all that I had intended to say, I stammered:

"'I am Henry Chedridge. I want to see Molly. I am rich, I have my
degree--'

"'You cannot see her!' she said. Just that! The door began to close. But
I had myself in hand now. I laid hold of the door and spoke in a
different tone. The tone of a master.

"'This is foolish, Mrs. Weston. I thought you understood. I can and I
will see your daughter. Molly is my wife!'

"She gave way at that. The door opened wide, showing a long empty hall.
The woman stood aside, made no effort to stop me, but looking me in the
eyes she said: 'You come too late. Your wife is not here. Molly
is dead!'

"Then, in one second, it seemed that all the years of overwork, of
mental strain and bodily deprivation rose up and took their due. I tried
to speak, stuttered foolishly, and fell like dead over the door-sill of
the house I was never to enter.

"You know the rest, for you saved me. When I struggled back to life,
without the will to live, you shamed and stung me into effort. You
brought the new master-influence into my life, taught me that the old
ambition, the old work-ardour was not dead. Those months with you in
Paris, in Germany, in London at the feet of great men saw a veritable
new birth. I ceased to be Henry Chedridge, lover, and became Henry
Callandar, scientist. All this I owe to you."

The other raised his hand.

"No, not that. Some impulse I may have given you, but you have made
yourself what you are. But--you have not told me all yet?"

"No." Again the doctor began his uneasy pacing of the room. "The rest is
harder to tell. It is not so clear. It has nothing to do with facts at
all. It is just that when I first began to show signs of overwork this
last time I became troubled with an idea, an obsession. It had no
foundation. It persisted without reason. It was fast becoming
unbearable!"

He paused in his restless pacing and Willits' keen eyes noticed the look
of strain which had aroused his alarm some months ago. Nevertheless he
asked in his most matter-of-fact tone, "And the idea was--?"

Callandar hesitated. "I can hardly speak of it yet in the past tense.
The idea is--that Molly is not dead!"

"Good Heavens!" ejaculated the professor, startled out of his calm. "But
have you any reason to doubt? To--to base--"

"None whatever. No enquiries which I have made cast doubt upon the
mother's words. But on the other hand I have been unable to confirm
them. I cannot find where my wife died--except that there is no record
of her death in the Cleveland registries. She did not die in Cleveland."

"But you have told me that they were seldom at home. That the mother was
a great traveller."

"Yes. The want of evidence in Cleveland proves nothing."

"Did you feel any doubt at first?"

"Absolutely none. The gloomy house, the empty hall, the white face and
black dress of the woman in the door, the look of horror and anger in
her eyes--yes, and a kind of grim triumph too--all served to drive the
fatal message home. Dead!--There was death in the air of that house,
death in the ghastly face--in the cruel, toneless words!--After my
tedious recovery I made an effort to see Mrs. Weston, although I had
conceived a horror of the woman, but she was gone. The house had been
sold. I tried to trace her without result. She seemed to have vanished
off the face of the earth."

"And how long ago did the whole thing happen?"

"Twelve years. I was twenty-three when I went to claim my bride. I am
thirty-five now."

"Dear me!" said the little man sincerely, "I have always thought you
older than that! But twelve years is--twelve years! And you say this
doubt is a very recent thing?"

"Yes. I have told you the thing is absurd. But I can't help it."

"Have you made any further enquiries?"

"Yes, uselessly. There is a rumour that Mrs. Weston, too, is dead. A
lady who used to know them tells me that she is certain she heard of her
death--in England, she thinks, but upon being questioned was quite at
sea as to where or when or even as to the original source of her
information. She remembers 'hearing it' and that's all. Then I sought
for the aunts, the maiden ladies whom Molly visited in California. They
too are gone, the older died during the time I lay ill in the hospital.
The younger one was not quite bright, I believe, and was taken away to
live with some relatives in the East. It was not Molly's mother who
fetched her. It was a man, a very kind man whom the old lady, my
informant, had never seen before. She said he had a queer name. She
could not remember it, but thought he was a physician. I imagine that
the kind friend was an asylum doctor."

"Very likely. And could your informant tell you nothing of the niece--if
Molly had visited there?"

"She remembered her last visit very well but her memories were of no
value. She was a sweet, pretty child, she said, and she often wondered
how she came to have such a homely mother. She evidently disliked Mrs.
Weston very much, and when I asked her if she had ever heard of Molly's
death she said no, but that she was not a bit surprised as she had
always predicted that the pretty, little, white thing would be worried
into an early grave. I noticed the word 'white' and asked her about it,
for the Molly I knew had a lovely colour. Her memory became confused
when I pressed her, but she seemed quite sure that the girl who came
that winter with her mother was a very pale girl--looked as if she might
have come south for her health."

"All of which goes to prove--"

"Yes--I know. Poor Molly! Poor little girl! I believe in my heart that
our mad marriage killed her. Without me constantly with her, the fear of
her mother, perhaps the doubt of me, the burden of the whole disastrous
secret was too much. And it was my fault, Willits--all my fault!" He
turned to the window to hide his working face. "Do you wonder," he added
softly, "that her poor little wraith comes back to trouble me?"

"Come, come, no need to be morbid! You made a mistake, but you have
paid. As for the doubt which troubles you--it is but the figment of a
tired brain. The mother could have had no possible reason for deceiving
you. You were no longer an ineligible student--and the girl loved you.
Besides, there was the legal tie. Would any woman condemn her daughter
to a false position for life? And without reason? The idea is
preposterous. Come now, admit it!"

"Oh, I admit it! My reasoning powers are still unimpaired. But reason
has nothing to do with that kind of mental torture. It is my soul that
has been sick; it is my soul that must be cured. And to come back to the
very point from which we started, I believe I shall find that cure
here--in Coombe."

"With Mrs. Sykes?" dryly.

"Certainly. Mrs. Sykes is part of the cure."

"And the other part?"

"Oh--just everything. I hardly know why I like the place. But I do. Why
analyse? I can sleep here. I wake in the morning like a man with the
right to live, and for the first time in a year, Willits, a long
torturing year, I am beginning to feel free of that oppression, that
haunting sense that somewhere Molly is alive, that she needs me and that
I cannot get to her. I had begun to fear that it would drive me mad.
But, here, it is going. Yesterday I was walking down a country road and
suddenly I felt free--exquisitely, gloriously free--the past wiped out!
That--that was why I almost feared to see you, Elliott, you bring the
past so close."

The hands of the friends met in a firm handclasp.

"Have it your own way," said the professor, smiling his grim smile.
"Consider me silenced."

The doctor's answer was cut off by the jingling entrance of Mrs. Sykes
bearing before her a large tray upon which stood tall glasses, a beaded
pitcher of ice cold lemonade and some cake with white frosting.

"Seeing as it's so hot," said she amiably, "I thought a cold drink might
cool you off some. Especially as breakfast will be five minutes late
owing to the chicken. I thought maybe as you had a friend, doctor, a
chicken--"

"A chicken will be delicious," said the doctor, answering the question
in her voice. "Mrs. Sykes, let me present Professor Willits; Willits,
Mrs. Sykes! Let me take the tray."

Mrs. Sykes shook hands cordially. "Land sakes!" she said. "I thought you
were a priest! Not that I really suspicioned that the doctor, good
Presbyterian as he is, would know any such. But priests is terrible
wily. They deceive the very elect--and it's best to be prepared. As it
is, any friend of the doctor's is a friend of mine. You're kindly
welcome, I'm sure."

"Thank you," said the professor limply.

The doctor handed them each a glass and raised his own.

"Let us drink," he said, "to Coombe. 'Coombe and the Soul cure!'"

"Amen!" said Willits.

"Land sakes!" said Mrs. Sykes. "I thought it was his spine!"




CHAPTER VIII


Zerubbabel Burk sat upon his stool of office in the doctor's consulting
room, swinging his legs. Would-be discoverers of perpetual motion might
have received many hints from Bubble, though he himself would have
scorned to consider the swinging of legs as motion. He was under the
delusion that he was sitting perfectly still. For the doctor was asleep.

Asleep, at four o'clock on a glorious summer day! No wonder his friend
and partner wore a tragic face.

"Doesn't seem to care a hang if he never gets any patients!" mused
Bubble, resentfully, stealing a half fond, half angry glance at the
placid face of the sleeper. "Only two folks in all day and one a kid
with a pin in its throat. And all he says is, 'Don't worry, son, we're
getting on fine!' We'll go smash one of these days, that's what we'll
do--just smash!"

"Tap-tap" sounded the blinds which were drawn over the western windows.
A pleasant little breeze was trying to come in. "Buzz" sounded a fly on
the wall. Bubble arose noisily and killed it with a resounding "thwack."

"Wake the doctor, would you?" he said. "Take that!"

But even the pistol-like report which accompanied the fly's demise
failed to ruffle the sleeper. Bubble returned disconsolate to
his stool.

"Smash," he repeated, "smash is the word. I see our finish."

The pronoun which Bubble used nowadays was always "we." He belonged to
the doctor body and soul, but it was no servile giving. The doctor also
belonged to him, and it was with this privilege of ownership that he now
found fault with his idol. Had any one else objected to the doctor's
afternoon rest he would have found reason and excuse enough; but in his
own heart he was puzzled. Such indifference to the appearances, such
wilful disregard of "business" could hardly, he thought, be real; yet,
for an imitation, it was remarkably well done. Bubble admired even while
he deprecated.

Why, he did not even go to church so that the minister might introduce
him around as "Dr. Callandar, the new brother who has come amongst us."
Neither did he walk down Main Street, nor show himself in public places.
When he went walking he went early in the morning and directed his steps
toward the country. About all the usual means of harmless and necessary
advertising he did not seem to know Beans! Bubble looked disconsolately
out of the window. There was Ann, now, coming across the yard. School
must be out, and still the doctor slept.

"Anybody in?" asked Ann in a stage whisper.

"Not just now. Been very busy though. Doctor's resting. Stop that
noise."

"I'm not making any noise! He's part my doctor anyway. I'll make a noise
if I like--"

"No you won't, miss!"

"But I don't _like_," added Ann with her impish smile. "If he's asleep
what are you staying here for? Come on out."

Bubble regarded the tempter with scornful amazement.

"That's it!" he exclaimed, "jest like I always said, women haven't any
sense of honour. What d'ye suppose I'm here for?"

"Not just to swing your legs," placidly. "He doesn't need you when he's
asleep, does he? Come on and let's get some water-cress. He'd like some
for his tea--dinner I mean. Say, Bubble, why does he call it dinner?"

"Because he comes from the city, Silly! They don't have any tea in the
city. They have breakfast when they get up and lunch at noon and dinner
about seven or eight or nine at night. Then if they get hungry before
bed-time they have supper. The doctor says he never gets hungry after
dinner so he don't have that."

Ann considered this a moment.

"They do so have tea!" she declared. "I heard Mrs. Andrew West telling
about it. She said her sister in Toronto had a tea specially for her."

"Oh," with superb disdain, "that's just for women. If they can't wait
for dinner they get bread and butter and tea in the afternoon. But they
have to eat it walking around and they only get it when they go out
to call."

Ann sighed. "I'd like to live in the city," she murmured. "Say, don't
you feel as if you'd like a cookie right now?"

Bubble squirmed. But his Spartan fortitude held.

"In business hours? No, thank you. 'Tisn't professional. Look silly,
wouldn't I, if one of our patients caught me eating?"

"How many to-day?"

"That'd be telling. 'Tisn't professional to tell. Doctor says if a man
wants to succeed, he's got to be as dumb as a noyster in business!"

"Pshaw!" said Ann, "Aunty'll tell. She always counts. Then you don't
want a cookie?"

"Well--later on--Cricky! here's some one coming! You scoot--pike it!"

"I won't!" Ann stood her ground, peering eagerly around the rose bush.
"It's only Esther Coombe. She'll be coming to see Aunt--no--she's coming
here! Hi, Bubble, wake him up--quick!"

"Hum, Hum!" said Bubble in a loud voice, rattling a chair. The sleeper
made no movement.

Ann, brave through anxiety, flew across the room and shook him with all
the strength of her small hands. The heavy lids lifted and still
Ann shook.

"Is it an earthquake?" asked the victim politely.

"No--it's a patient! Oh, do get up. Oh, goodness gracious, look at your
hair!"

The doctor passed his hand absently over a disordered head. "Yes," he
said, "I have always thought that shaking is not good for hair. Dear me!
I believe I have been asleep!"

Ann threw him a glance of mingled admiration and reproach and vanished
through the parlour door just as the step of the patient sounded upon
the stone steps.

"Why, Bubble Burk!" said a voice. "What are you doing here?"

At the sound of the voice, sleep fled from the doctor's eyes. He arose
precipitately.

"I'm workin'," Bubble's voice was not as confident as usual. "This here
is Dr. Callandar's office. Mrs. Sykes' visitors go round to the
front door."

"Oh! But it's the doctor I wish to see. Is he in?"

Bubble was now plainly agitated.

"If you'll just wait a moment, I'll--I'll see."

Leaving Esther smiling upon the steps he disappeared into the shaded
office and pulled up the blinds. The couch had been decorously
straightened. The office was empty! Bubble gave a sigh of relief and his
professional manner returned.

"He isn't just what you might call in," he explained affably to Esther.
"But he'll be down directly. Walk in."

Esther walked in and took the seat which Bubble indicated.

"Somebody sick over at your house?" with ill-concealed hope.

Esther dimpled. "Not dangerously, thank you."

"Then it's just tickets for the choir concert. I might have known. But
you're too late. Doctor's got half a dozen already. He--"

Further revelations were cut short by the entrance of the doctor
himself. A doctor with sleep-cleared eyes, fresh collar, and newly
brushed hair. A doctor who shook hands with his caller in a manner which
even the professional Bubble felt to be irreproachable.

"Bubble, you may go."

With a grin of satisfied pride the junior partner departed, but once
outside the gloomy expression returned.

"It's only choir-tickets!" he told Ann, who was waiting around the
corner of the house. "Come on--let's go fishin'."

Inside the office Esther and the doctor looked at each other and smiled.
He, because he felt like smiling; she, because she felt nervous. Yet it
was not going to be as awkward as she had feared. With a decided sense
of relief she realised that Dr. Callandar looked exactly like a doctor
after all! Convention, even in clothes, has a calming effect. There was
little of the weary tramp who had quenched his throat at the school
pump in the well groomed and quietly capable looking doctor. With a
notable decrease of tension Esther saw that the man before her was a
stranger, a pleasant, professional stranger, with whom no embarrassment
was possible.

As for him he realised nothing except that Coombe was really a
delightful place. He felt glad that he had stayed.

"No one ill, I hope, Miss Coombe?" His tone, even, seemed to have lost
the whimsical inflection of the tramp.

"No, Doctor. Not ill exactly. It is Aunt Amy. We cannot understand just
what is the matter. You see, Aunty imagines things. She is not quite
like other people. Perhaps," with a quick smile as she thought of Mrs.
Sykes, "perhaps you may have heard of her--of her fantastic ideas? They
are really quite harmless and apart from them she is the most sensible
person I know. But lately, just the other day, something happened--"

He checked her with an almost imperceptible gesture. "Could you tell me
about it from the beginning?"

Esther looked troubled. "I do not know much about the beginning. You
see, Aunt Amy is my step-mother's aunt, and I have only known her since
she came to live with us shortly after my father's second marriage. But
I know that she has been subject to delusions since she was a young
girl. She was to have been married and on the wedding day her lover
became ill with scarlet fever, a most malignant type. She also sickened
with it a little later; it killed him and left her mentally twisted--as
she is now. Her health is good and the--strangeness--is not very
noticeable. It has usually to do with unimportant things. She is
really," with a little burst of enthusiasm, "a Perfect Dear!"

The doctor smiled. "And the new development?"

"It is not exactly new. She has always had one delusion more serious
than the others. She believes that she has enemies somewhere who would
do her harm if they got the chance. She is quite vague as to who or what
they are. She refers to them as 'They.' Once, when she came to us first,
she was frightened of poison and, although my father, who had great
influence over her, seemed to cure her of any active fear, for years she
has persisted in a curious habit of drinking her coffee without setting
down the cup. The idea seemed to be that if she let it out of her hands
'They,' the mysterious persecutors, might avail themselves of the
opportunity to drug it. Does it sound too fantastic?"

"No. It is not unusual--a fairly common delusion, in fact. There is a
distinct type of brain trouble, one of whose symptoms is a conviction of
persecution. The results are fantastic to a degree."

Well, the day before yesterday Aunt Amy was drinking her coffee as
usual, when she heard Jane scream in the garden. She is very fond of
Jane, and it startled her so that she jumped up at once, forgetting all
about the coffee, and ran out to see what was the matter. Jane had cut
her finger and the tiniest scratch upsets poor Auntie terribly. She is
terrified of blood. When she came back she felt faint and at once picked
up the cup and drank the remaining coffee. I hoped she had not noticed
the slip but she must have done so, subconsciously, for when I was
helping her with the dishes she turned suddenly white--ghastly. She had
just remembered!

'They've got me at last, Esther!' she said with a kind of proud
despair. 'I've been pretty smart, but not quite smart enough.'

I pretended not to understand and she explained quite seriously that
while she had been absent in the garden 'They' had seen her half-filled
cup and seized their opportunity. It was quite useless to point out that
there was no one in the house but ourselves. She only said, 'Oh, "They"
would not let me see them "They" are too smart for that.' Overwhelming
smartness is one of the attributes of the mysterious 'They.'

"I hoped that the idea would wear away but it didn't; it strengthened.
In vain I pointed out that she was perfectly well, with no symptom of
poisoning. She merely answered that naturally 'They' would be too smart
to use ordinary poisons with symptoms. 'I shall just grow weaker and
weaker,' she said, 'and in a week or a month I shall die!' I tried to
laugh but I was frightened. Mother advised taking no notice at all and I
have tried not to, but I can't keep it up. She is certainly weaker and
so strange and hopeless. I am terrified. Can mind really affect matter,
Doctor Callandar?"

"No. As a scientific fact, it cannot. But it is true that certain states
of mind and certain conditions of matter always correspond. Why this is
so, no one knows, when we do know we shall hold the key to many
mysteries. The understanding, even partial, of this correspondence will
be a long step in a long new road. Meanwhile we speak loosely of mind
influencing matter, ignoring the impossibility. And, however it happens,
it is undoubtedly true that if we can, by mental suggestion, influence
your Aunt's mind into a more healthy attitude the corresponding change
will take place physically."

"But I have tried to reason with her."

"You can't reason with her. She is beyond mere reason. I might as well
try to reason you out of your conviction that the sun is shining. A
delusion like hers has all the stability of a perfectly sane belief."

"Then what can we do?"

"Since that delusion is a fact for her we must treat it as if it were a
fact for us."

"You mean we must pretend to believe that the danger is real?"

"It is real. People have died before now of nothing save a fixed idea of
death."

"Oh!"

"But don't worry. Aunt Amy is not going to die. When may I see her? If I
come over in a half an hour will that be convenient?"

Esther rose with relief. How kind he had been! How completely he had
understood! She had been right, perfectly right, in coming to him. In
spite of Mrs. Coombe's ridicule, Aunt Amy's need had been no fancy. And
there was another thing; he was coming to the house. Her mother would
see him--and presto! her prejudice against doctors would vanish--he
would cure the headaches, and everything would be happy again.

The doctor, watching keenly, thought that she must have been troubled
greatly to show such evident relief.

"One thing more," he said. "Was there, do you know, any history of
insanity in your aunt's family?"

The girl paled. The idea was a disturbing one.

"Why--no--I think not. I never heard. You see, she is not my Aunt,
really, but my step-mother's aunt. There was a brother, I think, who
died in--in an institution. He was not quite responsible, but in his
case it was drink. That is different, isn't it? Does it make any
difference?"

"No--only it may help me to understand the case. Good-afternoon."

He watched her go, through a peep-hole made by Bubble in the blind.

"Pretty, isn't she?" said a reflective voice below him.

The doctor started. But it was only Mrs. Sykes who had stepped around
the house corner to pluck some flowers from the bed beneath the window.
As he did not answer, the voice continued, "That boy Burk has gone
fishing. I told you you'd regret putting that new suit on to him, brass
buttons and all! Not that I want to say anything against the lad and his
mother a widow, but when a person's dealing with a limb of mischief a
person ought to know what to expect. Anybody sick over at
Esther's house?"

The doctor, leaning against the door in deep reverie, did not seem to
hear. Mrs. Sykes, after a suspicious glance, decided that perhaps he
really had not heard, and proceeded.

"Not that I'm asking out of curiosity, Land sakes! But I've got some
black currant jelly that sick folks fancy. I could spare a jar as
well as not."

A pause.

The flower picker bunched her flowers into a tight round knot which she
surveyed with pride. "That step-mother of Esther's now," she said. "I
don't hold much with her. Flighty, I call her. Delicate, too, if looks
don't lie. Men are queer. The only thing queerer is women. What d'ye
suppose a sensible middle-aged man like Doctor Coombe ever saw in that
pretty doll? And what did she see in him--old enough to be her father? A
queer match, I call it. But they do say that her side of it is easy
explained. Anyway it must have been a trying thing when the doctor's
gold mine didn't--"

Mrs. Sykes' flow of words ceased abruptly, for rising from a last
descent upon the rose bush she saw that her audience had vanished.

"Dear me! I hope he didn't think I was trying to be curious," said Mrs.
Sykes.




CHAPTER IX


It required some persuasion to induce Aunt Amy to consent to see the
doctor. Doctors, she had found (with the single exception of Dr.
Coombe), were terribly unreasonable. They asked all kinds of questions,
and never believed a word of the answers.

"And if I have a doctor," she declared tearfully, "I shall have to go to
bed. And if I go to bed who will get supper? The sprigged tea-set--"

"But you won't need to go to bed, Auntie. You aren't ill, you know; just
a little bit upset. If you feel like lying down why not use the sofa in
my room? And even if you do not wish to see the doctor for yourself,"
Esther's tone was reproachful, "think what a good opportunity it is for
us to get an opinion about mother. Don't you remember saying just the
other day that you thought mother was foolish to be so nervous
about doctors?"

"Yes, but she needn't stay in the room, need she, Esther? I don't want
her in the room. She laughs. But I would like to lie on your sofa and if
I must see him I had better wear my lavender cap."

"Yes, dear, and you will not mind mother staying--"

"But I do mind, Esther. And anyway she can't," triumphantly, "because
she has gone out."

"Gone out? Mother? But she knew the doctor was coming and she
promised--"

"Yes, I know. She said to tell you she had fully intended staying in
until the doctor had been, but she had forgotten about the Ladies' Aid
Meeting. She simply had to go to that. She said you could attend to the
doctor quite as well as she could and that it was all nonsense anyway,
because there was nothing whatever the matter with me." The faded eyes
filled with tears again and Esther had much ado to prevent their
imminent overflow.

She settled Aunt Amy upon the couch and adjusted the lavender cap
without further betrayal of her own feelings, but in her heart she was
both angry and hurt. Her mother had known of the doctor's intended visit
and had distinctly promised to remain in to receive him. What would Dr.
Callandar think? It was most humiliating.

The Ladies' Aid Meeting was plainly an excuse for a deliberate shirking
of responsibility. Or, worse still, Mrs. Coombe, divining Esther's
double motive, may have left the house purposely to escape seeing the
doctor on her own account. Esther well knew the stubbornness of which
she was capable upon this one question, and the cunningness of it was
like her. She had made no objections; she had not troubled to refuse or
to argue--she had simply gone out.

Well, it was something to feel that she, Esther, had done what she
could. At any rate, there was no time to worry, for the doctor was
already coming up the walk.

Esther hurried to the door. It relieved her to find that he seemed to
expect her, and showed no offence on realising that the patient's
nearest relative was not at home to receive him. Indeed, he seemed to
think of no one save the patient herself. His manner, Esther thought,
was perfect. Had she been a little older she might have suspected such
perfection, deducing from it that Callandar, like herself, was
subconsciously aware of an interest in the situation not altogether
professional. But the girl made no deductions and certainly there was no
trace of any embarrassment in the doctor's way with his patient. It took
only a moment for Esther to decide that here, at least, she had done the
right thing. She waited only long enough to see the frightened look in
Aunt Amy's eyes replaced by one of timid confidence and then, murmuring
an excuse, slipped away, leaving them together.

Callandar also waited while the startled eyes grew quiet and then lifted
the fluttering hand into his own firm one.

"Creatures of habit, we doctors, aren't we?" he said, smiling. "Always
taking people's temperatures."

Aunt Amy ventured upon a vague answering smile.

"I understand," continued the doctor, "that you have reason to fear that
you have been poisoned?"

The hand began to flutter again, but quieted as the pleasant, confident
voice went on:

"Your niece has told me something of the case but no details. Perhaps
you can supply them for me. When exactly did it happen and what kind of
poison was it?"

The fluttering hand became quite still and the eyes of Aunt Amy slowly
filled with a great amazement. Here was an unbelievable thing--a doctor
who did not argue or deny or playfully scold her for "fancies." A doctor
who took her seriously and showed every intention of believing what she
said. No one, save Dr. Coombe, had ever done that--

"It is always best in these cases to get the details from the patient
herself," went on the doctor, encouragingly.

No, he was not laughing! Aunt Amy could detect nothing save the gravest
of interest in his kindly eyes. An immense relief stole over her. A
relief so great that Callandar, watching, felt his heart grow hot
with pity.

"Oh, doctor!" she cried feebly, "I--" a rush of easy tears drowned the
rest of the sentence.

Callandar let her cry. He knew the value of those tears. Presently when
she grew more quiet he exchanged her soaking bit of cambric for his own
more serviceable square. Aunt Amy dried her eyes on it and handed it
back as simply as a child.

"Pray excuse me," she begged, "but--the relief! I might have died if you
had not come." She went on brokenly. "You see," dropping her voice, "my
relatives are _queer_. They have strange ideas. When I know things quite
well they tell me I am mistaken. Mary, my niece, laughs. Even Esther,
who tries to help me, thinks I do not know what I am talking about. They
all argue in the most absurd manner. If I do not pretend always that I
agree with them I have no peace. Sometimes when I tell some of the
things I know, Esther looks frightened and says I am not to tell Jane.
So I try to keep everything to myself. I don't want the children to be
frightened. They are young and ought to be happy. I was happy when I was
young--at least, I think it was I. Sometimes I'm not sure whether it
wasn't some other girl--I get confused--"

"Don't worry about it," said the doctor calmly. "Or about Miss Esther
either. I want to hear all about the poison."

Aunt Amy remembered her precarious condition with a start. Her eyes grew
vague.

"I don't know how They put it in," she said. "I didn't see Them, you
know. I left my cup of coffee standing while I went to find Jane. I
heard her crying. She had cut her finger and when I had bound it up I
felt faint, so I foolishly forgot and picked up the coffee and drank it.
I wasn't quite myself or I should never have been so careless."

The doctor seemed to appreciate this point. "Did you taste anything in
the coffee?" he asked.

"No. Of course They would be too clever for that!"

"And when did you begin to feel ill?"

"Just as soon as I remembered that I had forgotten to pour out a fresh
cup." The naïveté of this statement was quite lost upon the
eager speaker.

Esther, who had re-entered the room, opened her lips to improve this
opportunity for argument but, meeting the doctor's eye, refrained.
Callandar took no notice of the significant admission.

"Where do you feel the pain now?" he asked.

Aunt Amy appeared disturbed.

"Mostly in my head--I--I think." She moved restlessly.

Callandar appeared to consider this.

"But I suppose," he said thoughtfully, "that you really feel very little
actual pain. None at all perhaps?"

Aunt Amy admitted that she could not locate any particular pain.

"Weakness is the predominating symptom," went on the doctor. "It is, in
fact, a very simple case. All the more serious, of course, for being so
simple, _if_ we did not understand it. But now that we know exactly what
is wrong we need have no fear."

Aunt Amy's vague eyes began to shine.

"Shall we get the better of them again?" she asked eagerly.

"We certainly shall," kindly. "Miss Esther, I am going to leave some
medicine for your aunt; these little pink tablets. She must have one
every two hours and two at bedtime. When she has taken them for two days
I shall send something else. You will notice an improvement almost at
once. Even in an hour or two, perhaps. By the end of the week all
medicine may be discontinued."

He crushed a little pink tablet in a spoon, mixed it with water, and
watched the old lady while she eagerly swallowed it.

"There!" he exclaimed. "That is the beginning! All we need now is a
little rest and quiet. Nothing to excite the patient and a tablet
regularly every two hours." He arose, affecting not to see Aunt Amy's
grateful tears. "And of course," he added as if by an afterthought,
"_They_ won't know anything about this. They will think that, having
taken the coffee, the result is certain. They will take for granted that
They have finished you, in fact! So cheer up, it is worth a little
illness to be rid of the fear of Them forever."

A lightning flash of hope lit up the worn face upon the pillow. "Oh,
Doctor! Do you really think I am free?"

"Sure of it."

Aunt Amy sank back with a long sigh; her lined face grew suddenly
peaceful. Esther, who had observed the little scene with wonder, said
nothing, but taking the tablets, kissed her Aunt, and led the way out
in silence.

"Well?"

As they stood together in the hall she could see the amused twinkle in
the doctor's eye.

"I don't like it! You lied to her!"

"So I did," cheerfully.

"These tablets," holding up the glass vial, "what are they?"

"Tonic."

"And the medicine which you are going to send later?"

"More tonic."

"But she thinks--you gave her to understand that they are the antidote
for the poison which you know does not exist."

"No. They are the antidote for a poison which does exist--medicine for a
mind diseased."

"It's--it's like taking advantage of a child."

"So it is, exactly. I suppose you have never taken advantage of a child,
for the child's good?"

"Certainly not."

"Never told one, gave one to understand, so to speak, that a kiss will
cure a bumped head?"

"That's different!"

"Never told your school class during a thunderstorm that lightning never
hurts good children?"

"That's very different."

"And yet all the time you know that lightning falls upon the just and
unjust equally."

Esther was silent. The doctor laughed.

"I fear we are both sad story-tellers," he said gaily. "But in Aunt
Amy's case the fibbing will all be charged to my account, you are merely
the nurse. A nurse's duty is to obey orders and not frown (as you are
doing now) upon the doctor. You will find that I shall effect a cure.
Seriously, I do not believe that you have any idea of what that poor
woman has been suffering. If the delusion of living in continual danger
can be lifted in any way even for a time, it will make life over for
her. You would not really allow a scruple to prevent some alleviation of
your Aunt's condition, would you?"

The girl's downcast eyes flashed up to his, startlingly blue.

"No. I would not. I love her. I would tell all the fibs in the world to
help her. But all the time I should have a queer idea that _I_ was doing
wrong. It would be common sense against instinct."

"Against prejudice," he corrected. "The prejudice which always insists
that truth consists in a form of words."

They were now in the cool green light of the living room. Esther stood
with her back to the table, leaning slightly backward, supporting
herself by one hand. She looked tired. There were shadows under her
eyes. The doctor felt an impulse of irritation against the absent mother
who let the girl outwear her strength.

"My advice to you is not to worry," he said abruptly. "You are tired.
More tired than a young girl of your age ought to be. You cannot teach
those imps of Satan--I mean those charming children--all day and come
back to home cares at night. Will it be possible for me to speak to Mrs.
Coombe before I go?"

Watching her keenly he saw that now he had touched the real cause of the
trouble.

"I am sorry," began Esther, but meeting his look, the prim words of
conventional excuse halted. A little smile curled the end of her lips
and she added, "Since she went out purposely to escape you, it is
not likely."

"Your mother went out to escape me?" in surprise.

"In your capacity of doctor only. You see," with a certain childish
naïveté, "she hasn't seen you yet. And mother dislikes doctors very
much. Oh!" with a hot blush, "you will think we are a queer family,
all of us!"

"It is not at all queer to dislike doctors," he answered her cheerfully.
"I dislike them myself. At the very best they are necessary evils."

"Indeed no! And when one is ill it seems so foolish--"

"Is Mrs. Coombe ill?"

"I don't know. I think so. She has headaches. She is not at all like
herself. I hoped so much that you would meet her this afternoon, and
then she--she went out!"

"And this is really what is troubling you, and not Aunt Amy?"

"Yes. You see, Aunt Amy has been quite all right until the last two
days. But mother--that has been troubling us a long time."

"How long?"

"Almost since father died--a year ago."

"But--don't you think that if Mrs. Coombe were really ill her prejudice
would disappear? People do not suffer from choice, usually."

"No. That is just what puzzles me!" She did indeed look puzzled, very
puzzled and very young.

"If I could help you in any way?" suggested Callandar. "You may be
worrying quite needlessly."

"Do people ever consult you about their mothers behind their mother's
back?"

"Often. Why not?"

"Only that it doesn't seem natural. Grown-up people--"

"Are often just as foolish as anybody else!"

"Besides, I doubt if I can make you understand." Now that the ice was
broken Esther's voice was eager. "I know very little of the real trouble
myself. It seems to be just a general state of health. But it varies so.
Sometimes she seems quite well, bright, cheerful, ready for anything!
Then again she is depressed, nervous, irritable. She has desperate
headaches which come on at intervals. They are nervous headaches, she
says, and are so bad that she shuts herself up in her room and will not
let any of us in. She will not eat. I--I don't know very much about
it, you see."

"You know a little more than that, I think, perhaps when you know me
better?--It is, after all, a matter of trusting one's doctor."

"I do trust you. But feelings are so difficult to put into words. And
the greatest dread I have about mother's illness is only a feeling, a
feeling as if I knew, without quite knowing, that the trouble is deeper
than appears. Jane feels it too, so it can't be all imagination. It is
caused, I think, by a change in mother herself. She seems to be growing
into another person--don't laugh!"

"I am not laughing. Please go on."

"Well, one thing more tangible is that the headaches, which seem to mark
a kind of nervous crisis, are becoming more frequent. And the
medicine--"

"But you told me that she took no medicine!"

"Did I? Then I am telling my story very badly. She has some medicine
which she always takes. It is a prescription which my father gave her a
few months before he died. She had a bad attack of some nervous trouble
then which seems to have been the beginning of everything. But that time
she recovered and it was not until after father's death that the
headaches began again. Father's prescription must, long ago, have lost
all effect, or why should the trouble get worse rather than better? But
mother will not hear a word on the subject. She will take that medicine
and nothing else."

"Do you know what the medicine is?"

"No. Father used to fill it for her himself. She says it is a very
difficult prescription and she never has it filled in town, always in
the city."

"But why? Taylor, here, is quite capable of filling any prescription. He
is a most capable dispenser."

"Yes--I know. But mother will not believe it."

"And you say it does her no good whatever?"

"She thinks that it does. She has a wonderful belief in it. But she gets
no better."

The doctor looked very thoughtful.

"She will not allow you to try any kind of compress for her head?"

"No. She locks her door. And I am sure she suffers, for sometimes when I
have gone up hoping to help I have heard such strange sounds, as if she
were delirious. It frightens me!"

"Does she talk of her illness?"

"Never, and she is furious if I do. She says she is quite well and
indeed no one would think that anything serious was wrong unless they
lived in the house. Any one outside would be sure that I am worrying
needlessly. Am I, do you think?"

"I can't think until I know more. But from what you tell me, it looks as
if this medicine she is taking might have something to do with it. If it
does no good, it probably does harm. Perhaps it was never intended to
be used as she is using it. Otherwise, as you say, the attacks would
diminish. At the same time a blind faith in a certain medicine is not at
all uncommon. One meets it constantly. Also the prejudice against
consulting a physician. It is probable that Mrs. Coombe does not realise
that she is steadily growing worse. Could you let me examine the
medicine?"

Esther hesitated.

"It is kept locked up. But, I might manage it. If I asked her for it she
would certainly refuse. I--I should hate to steal it," miserably.

"I see. Well, try asking first. It is just a question of how far one has
the right to interfere with another's deliberately chosen course of
action. The medicine is probably injurious, even dangerous. I should
warn her, at least. If she will do nothing and you still feel
responsible I should say that you have a moral right to have your own
mind reassured upon the matter."

Esther smiled. "I believe I feel reassured already. Perhaps I have been
foolishly apprehensive and it never occurred to me that the medicine
might be at fault; at the worst I thought it might be useless, not
harmful. If I could only manage to have you see it without _taking_ it!
There must be a way. I'll think of something and let you know."

"Do." The doctor picked up his hat for the second time. He was genuinely
interested. He had not expected to find a problem of any complexity in
sleepy Coombe. The cases of Aunt Amy and the peculiar Mrs. Coombe seemed
to justify his staying on. It was pleasant also to help this charming
young girl--although that, naturally, was a secondary consideration!

Esther ran upstairs with a lightened heart.




CHAPTER X


"I really could not help being late, Esther! I tried to hurry them but
Mrs. Lewis was there. You know what _she_ is!"

Mrs. Coombe sank gracefully into a veranda chair. Out of the corners of
her eyes she cast a swift glance at the face of her step-daughter and,
as the girl was not looking, permitted herself a tiny smile of malicious
amusement. She was a small woman but one in whom smallness was charm and
not defect. Once she had been exceedingly pretty; she was moderately
pretty still. The narrow oval of her face remained unspoiled but the
small features, once delicately clear, appeared in some strange way to
be blurred and coarsened. The fine grained skin which should have been
delicate and firm had coarsened also and upon close inspection showed
multitudes of tiny lines. Her fluffy hair was very fair, ashy fair
almost, and would have been startlingly lovely only that it, too, was
spoiled by a dryness and lack of gloss which spoke of careless treatment
or ill health, or both. Still, at a little distance, Mary Coombe
appeared a young and attractive woman. The surprise came when one looked
into her eyes. Her eyes did not fit the face at all; they were old eyes,
tired yet restless, and clouded with a peculiar film which robbed them
of all depth. Curiously disturbing eyes they were, like windows with
the blinds down!

If her eyes were restless, her hands were restless too and she kept
snapping the catch of her hand-bag with an irritating click as
she spoke.

"I know I ought to have been here when the doctor called to see Amy,"
she went on, "but I could not get away. Mrs. Lewis talked and talked.
That woman is worse than Tennyson's brook. She makes me want to scream!
I wonder," musingly, "what would happen if I should jump up some day and
scream and scream? I think I'll try it."

"Do!"

"What did Doctor Paragon-what's-his-name say about Amy?"

"He thinks we have been treating Aunt Amy wrongly. He thinks she should
be humoured more. His name is Callandar."

"Callandar? What an odd name! It sounds half-familiar. I must have heard
it somewhere. There is a Dr. Callandar in Montreal, isn't there? A
specialist or something."

"I think this is the same man. But if it is he, doesn't want it known.
He is here for his health, and he has never taken the trouble to correct
the impression that he is a beginner working up a practice. I thought so
myself at first."

"At first?"

"When I first saw him. I have met him several times."

Mrs. Coombe was evidently not sufficiently interested to pursue the
subject. "Whoever he is," she said fretfully, "I hope he is not going to
allow Amy to fancy herself an invalid."

"He is going to cure the fancy."

"Oh!" dubiously. "Well, I hope he does! I find I must run over to
Detroit for a few days."

"What?"

"It would be provoking to have her ill while I'm away. No one else can
manage Jane properly while you're at school. Where is Jane?"

"I don't know. You are not speaking seriously, are you?"

"I certainly am. At a pinch I suppose I could take Jane with me. She
needs new clothes. But I'd rather not bother with her. Her measure will
do quite as well. I wish you would call her. I've got some butterscotch
somewhere. Here it is." The restless hands fumbled in the hand-bag. "No,
it isn't here, how odd! I promised Jane--"

"Mother, when did you decide to go away?"

"Some time ago. It doesn't matter, does it? I had a letter from Jessica
Bremner to-day. She asks me to come at once. It's in this bag somewhere.
I declare I never can find anything! Anyway, she wants me to come."

"When did you get the letter?"

"On the noon mail, of course."

Esther turned away. She knew very well that there had been no letter
from Detroit on the noon mail. But there seemed no use in saying so.
These little "inaccuracies" were becoming common enough. At first Esther
had exposed and laughed at them as merely humorous mistakes; but that
attitude had long been replaced by a cold disgust which did not scruple
to call things by their right names. She knew very well that Mary Coombe
had developed the habit of lying.

"You see," went on the prevaricator cheerfully, "it would be necessary
to run down to Toronto soon anyway. I haven't a rag fit to wear and
neither has Jane. But Detroit is better. Things are much cheaper across
the line. And easy as anything to smuggle. All you need to do is to wear
them once and swear they're old."

"An oath is nothing? But where is the money coming from?"

Mrs. Coombe shrugged her shoulders. "One can't get along without
clothes! And even if I could, there is another reason for the trip. My
medicine is almost finished. I can't risk being without that."

It was the opportunity for which Esther had waited. She spoke eagerly.

"Why not try getting it filled here? I'm sure they are as careful as
possible at Taylor's."

The hand-bag shut with a particularly emphatic click. Mrs. Coombe rose.

"We have discussed that before," she said coldly. "It is a very
particular prescription and hard to fill. As it means so much to me in
my wretched health to have it exactly right, I am surprised at
you, Esther!"

Esther put the surprise aside.

"You could get it by mail, couldn't you?"

"I shall not try to get it by mail."

"But Taylor's are absolutely reliable. Why not give them a chance? If it
is not satisfactory I shall never say another word. It seems so
senseless going to Detroit for a few drugs which may be had around the
corner. Perhaps it is not as difficult to fill as you think. Let me show
the prescription to Dr. Callandar--" She stopped suddenly for Mrs.
Coombe had grown white, a pasty white, and she broke in upon the girl's
suggestion with a little inarticulate cry of rage, so uncalled for, so
utterly unexpected, that Esther was frightened. For a moment the film
seemed brushed from the hazel eyes--the blinds were raised and angry
fear peeped out.

"You wouldn't dare!" The words were a mere breath. Then meeting the
girl's look of blank amazement she caught herself from the brink of
hysteria and added more calmly, "What an impossible suggestion! I need
no second opinion upon the remedy which your father prescribed for me
and I shall take none. As for the journey, I shall ask your advice when
I wish it. At present I am capable of managing my own affairs. I shall
come and go as I like."

The would-be firm voice wavered wrathed badly toward the end of this
defiance, but the widely opened eyes were still shining and as she
turned to enter the house, Esther caught a look in them, a gleam of
something very like hate.

"So that is what comes of asking," said Esther sombrely.

She did not follow her step-mother into the house but remained for a
while on the veranda, thinking. It was clearly useless to reopen the
subject of the prescription. For some reason Mrs. Coombe regarded it as
a fetish. She would not trust it to Taylor's. She would not allow a
doctor to see it; there remained only the suggestion of Dr. Callandar
that it be inspected without her consent. Esther knew where the
prescription was kept, but--

Women are supposed, by men, to have a defective sense of loyalty and it
is a belief fairly well established, also among men, that there is a
fundamental difference in the attitude of the sexes to that high thing
called honour. Esther was both loyal and honourable. To deceive her
step-mother, however good the motive, could not but be horrible to her
and just now, being angry with a very young and healthy anger, she was
less willing than ever to lose her own self-respect in the service of
Mary Coombe.

"I won't!" said Esther firmly, and went in to prepare Aunt Amy's supper.

"I don't feel like I ought to be eating upstairs this way," fussed the
invalid as Esther came in with the tray. "I am so much better. That
medicine the doctor gave me helped me right away. He must be a very
smart man, Esther."

"It looks like it, Auntie."

"I don't doubt I'll be around to-morrow just like he said. So I don't
want you staying home from school. That girl you get to take your place
is kind of cross with the children, isn't she?"

"She is strict."

"Well, don't get her. I don't like to think about the children being
scared out of their lives on my account. So I'll just get up as usual. I
could get up now if necessary. And my mind feels better."

"Your _mind_?" Never before had Esther heard Aunt Amy refer to "her"
mind as being in any way troublesome.

"Yes. I suppose you never knew, but sometimes I have felt a little
worried about my mind."

"Whatever for?" The surprise which still lingered on the girl's voice
was balm to Aunt Amy's soul. She laughed nervously.

"Of course it was foolish," she said, "but really there have been times
when I have felt--felt, I can hardly express it, but as if there were a
little something _wrong_, you know. Did you ever guess that I felt like
that, Esther?"

"No, Auntie."

Aunt Amy shivered. For a moment her faded eyes grew large and dark. "I'm
glad you did not guess it. It is a dreadful feeling, like night and
thunder and no place to go. A black feeling! I used to be afraid I might
get caught in the blackness and never find a way out and then--"

"And then what, dear?"

"Why, then--I'd be mad, Esther!"

"Oh, darling, how awful!" Esther's warm young arms clasped the trembling
old creature close. "You must never, never be afraid again! Why didn't
you tell me and let me help?"

"I couldn't. You would not have believed me. And it would have
frightened you. And you might have told Mary. If Mary knew of it she
would be certain to be frightened and if she was frightened she would
send me away. Then the darkness would get me."

"It never shall, Auntie. No one shall ever send you away! And you won't
be afraid any more, will you?"

"No, not if you don't keep telling me that things I know aren't true. I
know they are true, you see, but when you say they aren't it makes my
head go round."

"We'll be more careful, dear! And here is your medicine before you have
your supper."

Aunt Amy turned cheerfully to the supper tray.

"Your mother need not be told about it," she observed. "She wouldn't
understand. She was in a while ago to say she hoped I'd be better in the
morning. She is going to the city. What she came for was to ask me to
lend her my ruby ring. She never understands why I can't lend it to her.
I told her she might have the string of pearls and the pearl brooch and
the ring with the little diamonds and anything else except the ruby.
You see, I might die before she got back, and I couldn't die without the
ruby ring on my finger. I promised somebody--I can't remember whom--"

"I know, dear, don't try to remember."

"Mary says it is shameful waste to leave it lying shut up in the box in
my drawer. But it has to lie there. If I took it out now it would stop
shining immediately. And it must be all red and bright when I die, like
a shining star in the dark. Then, afterwards, you can have it, Esther.
You don't mind waiting, do you?"

"Gracious! I hope I'll be an old woman before then! So old that I shan't
care for ruby rings at all."

Aunt Amy looked at the girl's pretty hand wistfully. "I'd like to give
it to you right now, Esther. But you know how it is. I can't. If the red
star did not shine I might lose my way. Some one told me--"

"I know, Auntie. I quite understand. And you have given me so many
pretty things that I don't need the ruby."

"You may have anything else you want. But of course the ruby is the
loveliest of all. If I could only remember who gave it to me--"

"Perhaps you always had it," suggested Esther, hastily, for she knew
quite well the tragic history of the ruby.

"Perhaps. But I don't think so. I love it but I never dare to look at
it. It makes the blackness come so near. Does it make you feel
that way?"

"No--I don't know--large jewels often give people strange feelings they
say."

"Do they?" hopefully. "Go and look at it now. Don't lift it out of the
box. Just open the lid and look in. Perhaps you will feel something."

Esther went obediently to the drawer where the beautiful jewel had lain
ever since Aunt Amy's arrival. As no one outside knew of its existence
it was considered quite safe to keep it in the house. The box lay in a
corner under a spotless pile of sweet smelling handkerchiefs. Esther
snapped open the lid of the case and looked in. She looked close, closer
still, bending over the open drawer--

"Do you feel anything, Esther?"

The girl's answer came, after a second's pause, in a strained voice.
"The drawer is so dark, I can't tell!"

"Take it to the window," said Aunt Amy.

Esther lifted the case from the drawer and carried it into a better
light. Her eyes were panic-stricken. For her indecision had been only a
ruse to give herself time to think. She had known the moment she opened
the case that the ruby was gone!

"It does make me feel queer," she said, closing the case. "I'll put it
away."

"Is it a black feeling?" with interest.

"I think it is."

"Then you are kin to it," said Aunt Amy sagely. "Your mother never has
any feeling about it at all. Except that she would like to wear it. She
was looking at it when she was in. She was as cross as possible when I
told her she could not take it with her."

Esther gathered up the tea things without a word. Her curved mouth was
set in a hard red line. At the door she paused and turning back as if
upon impulse, said: "If it makes you feel like that, I would advise you
not to look at it, Auntie. It will be quite safe. I'll see to that. I'll
appoint myself 'Guardian of the Ring.'"




CHAPTER XI


Esther carried the tea-tray into the kitchen and stood for a moment
beside the open window letting the sweet air from the garden cool the
colour in her cheeks. Through the doorway into the hall she could see
into the living room where Jane sat at the table in a little yellow pool
of lamplight, busy with her school home work. Farther back, near the
dusk of one of the veranda windows, Mrs. Coombe reclined in an easy
chair. Her eyes were closed; in the half light she looked very pretty,
very fragile; her relaxed pose suggested helplessness. Unconsciously
Esther's innate strength answered to the call; her hard gaze softened.
To apply the terms liar and thief to that dainty figure in the chair
seemed little short of brutality. Mary was weak, that was
all--just weak!

At the sound of the girl's step in the doorway Mrs. Coombe opened her
eyes. They were very filmy to-night, blank, contented. Her nervousness
seemed to have left her. Perhaps she was half asleep, for she yawned, an
open, ugly yawn, which she did not trouble to raise her hand to hide.

"I have decided to take Jane with me, Esther."

"I don't want to go," said Jane.

"Well, you are going--that's enough."

"If you have really decided to go," began Esther slowly, "I think you
are wise to take Jane. We cannot tell yet just how Aunt Amy may be."

The child returned to her book with a discontented sigh. Esther came
nearer and spoke in a lower tone. "But before you go," she said, "please
don't forget to replace Aunt Amy's ring. If she were to find it gone it
would be no joke but a serious shock, as I suppose you know."

Mrs. Coombe laughed. And Esther realised that a laugh was the last thing
she had expected. For anger, evasion, denial, she had been prepared.
Mary would probably storm and bluster in her ineffective way--and return
the ring. Instead--

"How did you know I had it?" she asked good humouredly.

"I saw that it was gone."

"And the deduction was obvious? Well, this time you are right. I did
take it. I expect I have a right to borrow my own Aunt's things if she
is too mean to lend them. It's a shame of her to want to keep the only
decent jewel we have shut up. Amy gets more selfish every day."

"But you will put it back before she misses it?"

Mrs. Coombe could see her step-daughter's face quite plainly and its
expression made her wince, but she was reckless to-night. After all, why
pretend? If Esther intended to eternally interfere with her affairs the
sooner an open break came, the better.

"Perhaps, perhaps not. Certainly not until I return from my visit."

Esther fought down her rising dismay.

"Mother, don't you understand what you are doing? The ring is Aunt Amy's
You have no right to take it!"

"I've a right if I choose to make one."

"If Auntie finds out it is not in its box, we cannot tell what the
effect may be!"

"She needn't find out. What she doesn't know won't hurt her!"

"But--it is stealing!"

Mrs. Coombe laughed. "What a baby you are, Esther, for all your solemn
eyes and grown-up airs. Stealing--the idea! Anyway you need not worry
since you are not the thief." She yawned again, rose, and declared that
she felt quite tired enough to go to bed.

When she had gone, Jane left her lessons and came to her sister's side.

"Esther, do I really have to go away with Mother?"

"It looks like it, Janie. But you'll like it. Mrs. Bremner has a little
girl."

"I don't like little girls."

"Then you ought to! The change will probably do you good."

Jane looked dubious. "Things that I don't want never do me any good.
Will you help me with my 'rithmetic?"

"I will when I come back."

"Where're you going?"

"Out. I'll not be long. Answer Aunt Amy's bell if it rings, like a dear
child."

Esther's decision had been made, as many important decisions are,
suddenly, and without conscious thought. All the puzzling over what was
right and wrong seemed no longer necessary. Without knowing why, she
knew that it had become imperative to get some good advice and get it at
once. If she had been disturbed and uneasy before, she was frightened
now. Something must be done, if not for Mary's sake at least for the
sake of the honoured name she bore, and for Jane's sake!

"Mother doesn't seem to _know_ when a thing is wrong any more!" was the
burden of the girl's thought as she hurried upstairs.

She knew where the prescription was kept--in a little drawer of her
father's old desk, a drawer supposed to be secret. To-morrow Mary would
take it away with her. Esther opened the drawer without allowing herself
a moment for thought or regret. The paper was there, folded, in its
usual place.

With a sigh of relief she seized it, hurried to her own room for her hat
and then out into the summer night. A brisk five minute walk brought her
to Mrs. Sykes' gate, and there, for the first time, she hesitated.

"Evening, Esther!" called Mrs. Sykes cheerfully from the veranda. "Come
right along in. Mrs. Coombe told Ann you might be over to borrow the
telescope valise if she decided to take Jane. Rather sudden, her going
away, isn't it? Hadn't heard a word about it until the Ladies' Aid--come
up and sit on the veranda and I'll get it."

"I didn't come for the telescope," said Esther. "I came to see Dr.
Callandar."

"Oh," with renewed interest. "Well, he's in. At least he's in unless he
went out while I was upstairs putting Ann to bed. That's his consulting
room where the light is. It's got a door of its own so folks won't be
tramping up the hall--but of course you know. You were here this
afternoon. Funny, Mrs. Coombe going away with your poor Auntie sick and
all! I suppose it _is_ your Auntie, since it can't be Jane or
Mrs. Coombe?"

"Yes, it is Aunt Amy. She has not been very well."

"The heat, likely. Heat is hard on folks with weak heads. Not that your
Auntie's head ever seems weaker than lots of other folks. Won't you come
up and sit awhile?--Well, ring the bell."

Mrs. Sykes voice trailed off indistinctly as Esther rounded the veranda
corner and stood by the rose bush before the doctor's door. She pushed
the new electric bell timidly.

"You'll have to push harder than that!" called Mrs. Sykes. "It sticks
some!"

But the door had opened at once, letting out a flood of yellow light.

"Miss Coombe--you?"

"It's Esther Coombe come about her Aunt Amy," called the voice from the
veranda.

Hastily the doctor drew her in and closed the door with an emphatic
bang. Then for the second time that day they looked into each other's
eyes and laughed.

"Do you think my patients will stand that?" he asked her ruefully.

"Oh, we are used to Mrs. Sykes, we don't mind."

"That's good! Ah, I see you have the mysterious prescription. It wasn't
so hard after all, was it? Probably your mother was quite as anxious
as you."

"No, she refused to let me show it you. I took it. To-night was the only
chance, for she is going away to-morrow and will take it with her."

"And how about your Presbyterian conscience?" Still with a twinkle.

"Silenced, for the present. But look at it quickly for the silence may
not last. It seemed that I simply had to help mother, in spite of
herself. And there was no other way. All the same I shall despise myself
when I get time to think."

The doctor took the paper with a smile. "When that time comes I shall
argue with you, though argument rarely affects feeling. To my mind you
are doing an eminently sensible thing."

He opened the paper and peered at it under the lamp; looked quickly up
at the girl's eager face and then from her to the paper again.

"What is it?" she asked anxiously.

"Why--I don't know. Where did you get this?"

"In the secret drawer of father's desk."

"Was the prescription always kept there?"

"Yes."

The doctor folded the paper again and handed it to her. "Does this look
like the prescription?"

"Yes, of course. It is the prescription."

"I'm afraid not. Come and look."

Esther seized the paper eagerly and saw--a neatly written recipe for
salad dressing!

Hot and cold with mortification, she stared at it blankly. "I have been
nicely fooled," she said in a low voice.

"Am I permitted to smile, or would it hurt your feelings?"

"It is not at all funny! Of course the real prescription has been
removed. She must have suspected. You see, I asked her to let me have
it. Oh!" with sudden shame and anger. "She guessed that I might take it,
don't you see?"

"I am afraid you are right. But now at least I should think that you
have done your whole duty. It would look as if Mrs. Coombe was herself
aware of the inadvisability of continuing this prescription. Why else
should she be so careful to prevent you showing it to me? At the same
time she is determined to go on using it. We cannot prevent her."

"Can we do nothing?"

"When I see her I shall be better able to judge."

"But she is going away."

"Then we must wait. If it is, as I suspect, a case of disordered nerves
aggravated by improper treatment, the instinct is strongly for
concealment. Do you find, for instance, that Mrs. Coombe is not as frank
in other matters as she used to be?"

A shamed blush crimsoned the girl's cheek, but the doctor's tone was
compelling and she answered in a low voice: "Yes, I think so."

"Don't look like that. It is only a symptom of something rotten in the
nervous system."

"Isn't there such a thing as character?" bluntly.

"As distinct from the nervous system? Some say not. But we do not need
to venture such a devastating belief to know, well, that a dyspeptic is
usually disagreeable. In potential character he may be equal to the
cheeriest man who ever ate a hearty dinner. Think of Carlyle."

"I don't like Carlyle."

"But don't you admire him?"

"No. Do you remember the story of the beggar who picked up his hat one
day and instead of giving him sixpence, Carlyle said, 'Mon, ye may say
ye hae picked up the hat of Thomas Carlyle.'"

The doctor laughed. "Oh he had a guid conceit o' himself--must you go?"
For Esther had risen.

"Yes, thank you. Oh, please do not come with me. It is only a step. I'd
much rather not. Mrs. Sykes would conclude that the whole family were in
danger of immediate extinction."

She was so evidently perturbed that the doctor laid down his hat, but
for the first time it occurred to him that Mrs. Sykes was not an
unmixed blessing.

Esther was holding out her hand.

"Then you think we can safely leave it until mother returns?"

"I think we shall have to, and if things have been going on as long as
you think, a week more or less will make no very material difference. In
any case we cannot examine a lady by force or prevent her from getting a
prescription until one knows it to be dangerous."

"No, of course not. Good-night, and--thank you, Doctor!"

"And I am not to be allowed to walk home with you?"

"Truly, I would rather not."

"Then good-night, and don't worry."

He watched her flit down the dusky path, heard the click of the gate
latch, and turned back into the office to wonder why it seemed suddenly
bare and empty!




CHAPTER XII


Mrs. Coombe had been in the city a week when one morning Ann, who was
feeling lonely without Jane, sat swinging upon the five-barred gate and
whistling intermittently for Bubble. She had become very tired of
waiting. She knew that Bubble could hear. The five-barred gate was
within easy hearing distance of the house, and both doors and windows of
the office were open. Therefore it became each moment more evident that
the whistles were being deliberately ignored.

"Horrid, nasty boy!" exclaimed Ann, climbing to a precarious seat on the
highest of the five bars. "Well, if he waits until I come to get him,
he'll--just wait!"

It was very hot on the gate. The vacant field on the other side, where
the Widow Peel pastured her cow, was hot, too, but if one cut across the
field and circled the back of the Widow Peel's cottage one substantially
lessened the distance between oneself and the cool deliciousness of the
river. The Widow Peel was near-sighted and hardly ever noticed one
rushing over her beds of lettuce and carrots and onions, or if she did,
she could not "fit a name to 'em."

Ann sighed and swung her brown legs. Should she or should she not go in
search of Bubble? Going would mean a distasteful swallowing of proper
pride; not going would mean--no Bubble. It would be a case of cutting
off one's nose--Ann's small white teeth came together with a
little click.

"I'll go. But I'll pay him out afterwards."

With this thoroughly feminine decision she tumbled off the gate, raced
across the orchard and, having paused a moment to regain breath and
poise, appeared casually at the office door. The office looked cool and
empty; Bubble was not upon his official stool. Perhaps, after all, he
had not heard the whistles! Perhaps--

"What d'ye want?" asked a gruff voice from behind the desk.

Ann jumped, and then tried to look as if she hadn't.

"I knew you were there!" she said. "But just you wait till the doctor
catches you at it!" Mounting the step she frowned across at Bubble who,
in the doctor's favourite attitude, was reclining in the doctor's chair.
"I suppose you think you look like him, but you don't, nor act like him
either. If he was sitting there and a lady came in, he'd be up too quick
for anything. And if the lady was polite and stayed on the doorstep
(just like I am) he would say, 'Pray come in, madam,' and then he'd set
a chair and--"

"Oh, cut it out!" Bubble's dignity collapsed with his attitude. The
tilted chair came down with a bang and its occupant settled himself more
naturally upon a corner of the desk. "Don't bother me! I can't come out.
Doctor's away. Some one's got to attend to business. See those
medicines? Well, don't you go handling them! This here is for Lizzie
Stephens (measles), and that there is for Mrs. Nixon (twins). If they
got mixed I'd be responsible. Run away!"

"Where's the doctor?" asked Ann, ignoring.

"The doctor is out. You needn't wait. He won't be back all day."

"Where'd he go?"

"Little girls mustn't ask questions!"

Ann's small face wrinkled into an elfish grin. "I know where he's gone,"
she said slyly.

"Yes, you do!" This sarcastic comment was Bubble's most emphatic
negative.

"Very well, then, I don't."

Not to be outdone, Ann volunteered no further information. She sat down
on the step and waited.

Bubble busied himself with tying up the bottles. Presently he stepped
out from behind the desk.

"Think you can mind the office while I run around with these medicines?"
he asked sternly.

"Sure!" Ann's assent was placid.

"What'll you say if any one comes and asks for the doctor--or me?"

"You're out delivering medicines and the doctor's been called away very
sudden."

"What'll you tell them if they ask you what he's been called away to?"

"Oh, I'll just say they needn't worry, 'tisn't anything catching."

Bubble allowed his face to relax. He even displayed a grudging
admiration for this feminine diplomacy.

"And you wouldn't be telling lies, either," he remarked approvingly.
"All the same," with a return to gloom, "we can't keep it a secret.
Folks are bound to find out. You can bet your eyes on that!"

Ann nodded. "I expect most of them know by now. Any one that wanted to
could see them. _He_ didn't seem to care. They drove right down the main
street and you could see the picnic basket sticking out at the side!"

"O cricky! Isn't that just like him? You'd think he wanted the whole
town to know he'd gone off picnicking with a girl. But I'd have thought
Esther Coombe would have better sense!"

"It wasn't Esther's fault. She couldn't act as if she was ashamed of
him, could she? When a gentleman asks a lady to go out in his automobile
she can't ask him to drive down the back streets."

"If he had only taken her at night!" groaned the harassed junior
partner. "But no, he must take a whole day off and him with two patients
on his hands. Look at me! Have I ever asked off to go on any picnics?
Not on your tintype. Business is business. Doctors can't fool round like
other folks."

Ann nodded agreement. Things were coming her way very nicely. She
glanced at the wrathy Bubble out of the corners of her eyes. "I didn't
think he'd be mean like that," she remarked craftily.

"Like what? He isn't mean!"

"To make you stay in all day."

"He didn't. Not him! He gave me fifty cents and told me to take a day
off. 'Just run around with the medicine, Bubble,' says he, 'and then you
can hike it. I have a feeling in my bones,' he says, 'that nobody's
going to die to-day.'"

"Well, then--"

"A man has a sense of duty for all that."

"Well," rising with a dejected air, "if you're not coming, good-bye. It
will be lovely paddling! Aunt's given me some lettuce sandwiches and two
apple turnovers. One was for you, but I suppose I can eat them both. The
sugar's leaked all round the edge--lovely!"

The stern disciple of business watched her tie on her sun-bonnet with
mingled feelings. It began to look as if she was really going!

"Good-bye," said Ann.

Bubble's red face grew a shade redder.

"Just like a girl!" he said bitterly. "Because a man's got to deliver
two medicine bottles, off she goes and won't wait for him. And the
farthest I've got to go is over to Mrs. Nixon's. The whole thing won't
take five minutes."

Sun-bonnets are splendid things for hiding the face! Had Bubble seen
that slow smile of victory there is no telling what might have happened.
But he did not see it. And Ann was too good a general to exult openly.
Her answer was carefully careless. "I'll wait--if you'll hurry up!"

But the look which she threw after his hastily retreating figure was as
old as Eve.

Meanwhile the doctor and Esther, who had been so criminally careless of
professional appearances as to drive down Main Street with a picnic
basket protruding, were enjoying themselves with an enjoyment peculiar
to careless people. Esther had forgotten about the pile of uncorrected
school exercises which were supposed to form her Saturday's work; the
doctor had forgotten about the measles and the twins. Rain had fallen in
the night and the dust was laid, the trees were intensely green.

Neither of them knew exactly how this pleasant thing had come about,
although, as a matter of crude fact, Mrs. Sykes had played the part of
the god from the machine. This energetic lady had made the doctor's
professional career her peculiar care and it had occurred to her that,
as a resident physician, he was disgracefully ignorant of the
surrounding country. At the same moment she had remembered that
to-morrow was Saturday, and that for trapesing the country and
meandering around in outlandish places there was no one in town equal to
Esther Coombe.

"But," objected the doctor, "I hardly know Miss Coombe well enough to
ask a favour of her."

Mrs. Sykes opined that that didn't matter. "Land sakes," she declared,
"it would be a nice state of affairs if one huming-being couldn't do a
kindness to another without being acquainted a year or two." Besides,
Esther, as the old doctor's daughter, might almost be said to have a
duty toward the newcomer. Mrs. Sykes felt sure that Dr. Coombe would
have insisted upon proper attentions being shown, since he was always
"the politest man you ever saw, and terrible nice to strangers."

Mrs. Sykes also, with the assistance of Aunt Amy, had provided the large
basket. They might not need it all, but then again they might. It was
best to be prepared. And, anyway, no one should ever say that she, Mrs.
Sykes, "skimped" her boarders' meals. As for the big shawl, once
belonging to a venerated ancestress, it is always safe to take a big
shawl on a country trip even in June heat with the thermometer going up.

The doctor agreed to everything, even the shawl. Whether one is taking a
rest cure or not, it is distinctly pleasant to look forward to a day in
the country with a lovely girl. Esther had taken his request quite
simply. It seemed only natural to her that he should wish to explore,
while the invitation to act as guide was frankly welcomed. Indeed her
girlish gaiety in the prospect had shown very plainly that such holidays
had been rare of late. School did not "keep" on Saturday, Jane was away,
and Aunt Amy was so much better that she could leave her without
misgiving. Bubble alone prophesied disaster, and at him they
all laughed.

There is a little folder published by the Town Council which gives a
very good idea of the country around Coombe. We might quote this, but it
will be much better for you to go some time and see things for yourself.
Dr. Callandar saw a great deal that day, but was never very clear
afterwards in his descriptions. It was rocky in spots, he knew, and wild
and sweet and piney. And there were little lakes. He remembered the
lakes particularly because--well, because of what came later.

They had their lunch on the shores of a jewel-like bay, sitting upon the
shawl of Mrs. Sykes' grandmother. Esther had many memories of the place.
She had often camped there with her father. But it had been wilder then.
Once a bear had come right up to the door of her tent.

"By Jove!" said the doctor enviously, "what did you do?"

"I said 'shoo'!"

"And did he?"

"Yes, he did. He was a nice bear, very obedient. Some days later father
and I saw Mrs. Bear trot across the clearing with two baby bears behind.
They were moving. I think Mr. Bear was looking for a house when he
called on me."

Altogether it was a magic day. There is an erroneous belief that magic
has died out of the world. But in our hearts we all know better. Which
of us has not lived through the magic hours of a magic day? Which of us
does not know that land, unmapped, unnamed, a land whose sun is
brighter, whose grass is greener, whose sky is bluer, and whose every
road runs into a golden mist? Magic land it must be, for much seeking
cannot find it. No one, not the wisest nor the best, may enter it at
will; but for every one at some time the unseen gate swings open, birds
sing, flowers bloom, the glory and the dream descend! Poor indeed,
unutterably poor and cheated of his heritage is he who has not
passed that way.

They were not in love, of course. They were too happy for that. Love is
the greatest thing in the world, but it is seldom quite happy. Esther
and the doctor were not lovers but lingered in that deliciously
unconscious state of "going-to-be-in-love-presently" which is nothing
less than heavenly. Therefore they ate their lunch with appetite and
laughed about the story of the bear. Both were surprised when the
doctor's watch told them it was time to think of home.

They came back very slowly along the shaded trail to where the car stood
waiting in the brilliant light of the declining sun.

"Just a moment," said the doctor, and cranked vigorously. A confusion of
odd noises ensued, from which, somehow, the right noise did not emerge.

"Just a moment," he repeated. "There appears to be something loose--or
tight--or something. If you'll just sit out on the grass a moment, Miss
Esther, I'll see what it is."

Esther descended. The grass was just as pleasant to sit upon as the car
seat and she knew nothing whatever about the tricky ways of motors.

"Just a moment," said Callandar for the third time, and disappeared
behind the bonnet. Fifteen minutes after, he reappeared with a very hot
face decorated fantastically with black.

"She's sulking," he announced gloomily.

"Is she?" Esther's tone held nothing save placid amusement.

"Just a moment." The doctor banged down the bonnet and effaced himself
once more. This time under the body of the car.

Motors are mysterious things. Why a well-treated, not to say pampered,
car which some hours before had been left in perfect condition and
excellent temper should abruptly turn stubborn and refuse to fulfil its
chief end is a problem which we shall not attempt to solve. Every one
who has ever owned a motor knows that these things be.

The doctor, a modest man, considered himself a fair mechanician. In
expansive moments he, who made nothing of his undoubted excellence in
his own profession, was wont to boast that you couldn't teach him much
about motors! He had laughed to scorn the remark of his Scotch chauffeur
that "they things need a deal o' humourin'!" Humour a thing of cogs and
screws? Absurd! One must master a motor, not humour her.

Half an hour later he emerged from the car's eclipse and sank, a
pitiable figure, upon the grass beside Esther.

"Won't it go?" asked Esther dreamily. It had been very pleasant sitting
there watching the sun set.

The master of motors made a tragic gesture. "No," he said, "she won't."

"Shake her," said Esther.

Dr. Callandar pushed back his sweat-bedewed hair with fingers which left
a fearsome streak above his left eyebrow. The girl laughed. But the
doctor's decorated face was rueful.

"Do you know, Miss Esther, I'm afraid it isn't a bit funny." His tone,
too, was sober; and Esther, suddenly more fully alive to the situation,
noticed that the hands clasped recklessly about the knees of once
spotless trousers were shaking, just a little. He must be awfully tired!

"That's because you can't see yourself. Give the motor a rest. There is
plenty of time. Let's have tea here instead of on the way home. There is
cold tea and chicken-loaf, bread and butter, and half a tart."

The doctor brightened. "You may have the half-tart," he concluded
generously. "And in return you will forgive me my pessimism. I believe I
am hungry and thirsty and--if I could only swear I should be all right
presently."

Esther put her small fingers in her ears and directed an absorbed gaze
toward the sunset.

Callandar laughed.

"All over!" he called. "Richard is himself again. And now we have got to
be serious. Painful as it is, I admit defeat. I can't make that car
budge an inch. It won't move. We can't push it. We have no other means
of conveyance. Deduction--we must walk!"

"Yes, only like most deductions, it doesn't get us anywhere. We _can't_
walk."

"Not to Coombe of course. Merely to the nearest farm house."

"There isn't any nearest farm house."

"Then to the nearest common or garden house."

"I thought we were going to be serious. Really, there is no house within
reasonable walking distance. We are quite in the wilds here. Don't you
remember the long stretches of waste land we came through? No one builds
on useless ground. The nearest houses of any kind are over on the other
side of the lake. The beach is good there and there are a few summer
cottages and a boarding house. Farther in is the little railway station
of Pine Lake--"

"Jove! That's what we want! Why did you try to frighten me? Once let us
reach the station and our troubles are over. There is probably an
evening train into Coombe."

"There is. But we shall never catch it. We are on the wrong side of the
lake. We have no boat. There is a trail around but it is absolutely out
of the question, too far and too rough, even if we knew it, which we do
not. It would take a woodsman to follow it even in daylight."

"But--" The doctor hesitated. He was beginning to feel seriously
disturbed. It seemed impossible that they could be as isolated as Esther
seemed to think. Distance is a small thing to a powerful motor eating up
space with an effortless appetite, which deceives novice and expert
alike. It is only when one looks back that one counts the miles. He
remembered vaguely that the nearest house was a long way back.

"I'll have another try," he answered soberly, "and in the meantime,
think--think hard! There may be some place you have forgotten. If not,
we are in rather a serious fix."

"There are no bears now," said Esther.

"There are gossips!" briefly.

The girl laughed. The thought of possible gossip seemed to disturb her
not at all. "Oh, it will be all right as soon as we explain,"
confidently. "But Aunt Amy will be terrified. If we could only get word
to Aunt Amy! I don't mind so much about Mrs. Sykes, for she is always
prepared for everything. She will comfort herself with remembering how
she said when she saw it was going to be a lovely day: 'It may be a fine
enough morning, Esther, but I have a feeling that something will happen
before night. I have put in an umbrella in case of rain and a pair of
rubbers and a rug and you'd better take my smelling salts. I hope you
won't have an accident, I'm sure, but it's best to be forewarned.'"

The doctor glanced up from his tinkering to join in her laugh. He felt
ashamed of himself. The possibility of evil tongues making capital of
their enforced position had certainly never entered into the thought of
this smiling girl. Yet that such a possibility might exist in Coombe as
well as in other places he did not doubt. And she was in his charge. The
thought of her clear eyes looking upon the thing which she did not know
enough to dread made him feel positively sick!

When he spoke to her again there was a subtle change in his manner. He
had become at once her senior, the physician, and man of the world.

"Miss Esther," he said, leaving his futile tampering with the machine,
"I can see no way out of this but one. I am a good walker and a fast
one. I shall leave you here with the car and the rugs and a revolver
(there is one in the tool box), and go back along the road. I shall walk
until I come to somewhere and then get a carriage or wagon--also a
chaperone--and come back for you. It is positively the only thing
to do."

Esther's charming mouth drooped delicately at the corners. "Oh no!
That's not at all a nice plan. I'm afraid to stay here. Not of bears,
but of tramps--or--or something."

"Where there are no houses there will be no tramps."

"There may be. You never can tell about tramps. And I couldn't shoot a
tramp. The very best I could do would be to shoot myself--"

"But--"

"And I might bungle even that!" pathetically.

"But, my dear girl--"

"And anyway, I've thought of another plan. There is a place on the lake,
on this side. Not a house exactly, but a log cabin, where old Prue
lives. Did you ever hear of old Prue? She is a man-hater and a recluse
and lives all by herself in the bush. It is a dreadful place and she
keeps a fierce dog! But perhaps she keeps a boat, too. She must keep a
boat," cheerfully, "because she lives right by the water and I know she
fishes. If she would only let us have the boat! But I warn you she may
refuse. She is like the witch in 'Hansel and Gretel.' Do you remember--"

But at the first mention of the boat, the doctor had sprung to action
and was now standing ready laden with the basket and the rug. With the
air of a man who has never heard of "Hansel and Gretel" he slipped a
most businesslike revolver into a pocket of his coat. "For the dog, if
necessary," he said. "We must have that boat! Is it far?"

"Quite a walk. About two miles through the bush. But I know the way and
the trail is fairly good, or should be. It branches off from the one we
took this morning."

The sun was gone when they turned back into the woods but the wonderful
after-light of the long Canadian sunset would be with them for a good
time yet. There was no breeze to stir the trees, but the air had cooled.
It was not unpleasantly hot, now, even in the thickest places. The
doctor stepped out briskly.

"Listen!" Esther paused with uplifted finger. The trees were very still
but in the undergrowth the life of the woods was beginning to stir.
Startled squirrels raced up the fallen logs, glancing backward with
curious but resentful eyes. Hidden skirmishings and rustlings were
everywhere and something brown and furry darted across the path with a
faint cry.

"Don't you feel as if you were in some fairy country?" asked the girl.
"You can feel and hear them all about you though they keep well hidden.
A million eager eyes are watching, Lilliputian armies lie in ambush
beneath the leaves. How quiet they are now that we have stopped moving,
but as soon as we go on the hurry and skurry will break out afresh! We
are the invading army and the fairies fly to help the wood-folk protect
their homes."

As they branched into the deeper path the light grew dimmer. Outside, it
would still be clear golden twilight but here the grey had come. And now
the trees grew closer together and a whispering began--a weird and
wonderful sighing from the soul of the forest; the old, primeval cry to
the night and to the stars.

It was almost dark when they reached the tiny clearing by the lake.
Across the cleared space the water could be seen, faintly luminous, with
the black square of the cabin outlined against it. There was no sign of
life or light from the dark windows. A dog began to bark sharply.

"He is chained!" said Callandar. "We are fortunate."

"How can you tell?"

"A free dog never barks in that tone. I think he has been a bad dog
to-day. Killing chickens, perhaps, or chasing cats. A man-hater, like
your old witch, is certain to have cats! I wonder where she is? Does she
count going to bed at sundown as one of her endearing peculiarities?"

"Quite the contrary, I imagine. Let's knock."

They raced up the path to the door like children and struck some lusty
blows. No one answered. The door was locked and every window was blank.

"Knock again!"

They knocked again, banged in fact, and then rattled the windows.

"She could never sleep through all that racket!" said Callandar with
conviction. "She must be out. Well, out or in, we've got to get that
boat. Let's explore--this path ought to lead to the lake."

"Shall we steal it?" in a delighted whisper.

"We probably shall. You won't mind going to jail, I hope?"

"Not at all!" The doctor was walking so rapidly that Esther was a little
out of breath. "Only, the oars--are certain--to be locked--in the
house!" she warned jerkily.

"Then we shall serve sentence for house breaking also."

"Oh, gracious!" Esther stumbled over the root of a tree and nearly fell.
But the doctor only walked the faster. They scrambled together down the
steep path and over the stretch of rocky beach to where the tiny float
lay a black oblong on the water. The boat house was beside it.

"Eureka!" cried the doctor, springing forward.

But the door of the boat house was open and the boat was gone.




CHAPTER XIII


It is a fact infinitely to be regretted, but the doctor swore!

"Well, did you _ever!_" exclaimed Esther. She was a little tired and
more than a little excited, a condition which conduces to hysteria, and
collapsing upon the end of the float she began to laugh.

"I wish," said the doctor judicially, "that I knew exactly what you find
to laugh at."

"Oh, nothing! Your face--I think you looked so very murderous. And you
did swear--didn't you?"

"Beg your pardon, I'm sure," stiffly.

For an instant they gazed resentfully at each other. The doctor was
seriously worried. Esther felt extremely frivolous. But if he wanted to
be stiff and horrid,--let him be stiff and horrid.

"I declare you act as if it were my fault the old boat is gone!" she
remarked aggrievedly.

"Don't be silly!"

An uncomfortable silence followed. Esther began to realise how tired she
was. Callandar stared out gloomily over the darkening lake.

"Anyway it's bad enough without your being cross," said Esther in a
small voice.

"Cross--my dear child! Did I seem cross? What a brute you must think me.
But to get you into this infernal tangle!--If this old woman is out in
the boat she'll have to come back some time. She can't stay out on the
lake all night."

Esther, who thought privately that this was exactly what the old woman
might do, made no reply. She rather liked the tone of his apology and
was feeling better.

"Then there is the dog. If she is anywhere near, she will be sure to
hear the dog. From the noise he is making she will deduce burglars and
return to protect her property. As a man-hater she will have no fear of
a mere burglar. Luckily for us, that dog has a carrying voice!"

Scarcely had he spoken than the dog ceased to bark.

"Shall I go and throw sticks at it?" asked Esther helpfully.

"Hush! The dog must have heard something. Let's listen!"

In the silence they listened intently. Certainly there was something, a
faint indeterminate sound, a sound not in the bush but in the lake, a
sound of disturbed water.

"The dip of a paddle," whispered Callandar. "Some one is coming in a
canoe. The dog heard it before we did--recognised it, too, probably. It
must be the witch!"

The dipping sound came nearer and presently there slipped from the
shadow of the trees a darker shadow, moving. A canoe with one paddle was
coming toward them.

Esther with undignified haste scrambled up from the float, abandoning
her position in the line of battle in favour of the doctor. The dog
broke into a chorus of ear-splitting yelps of warning and welcome. The
moving shadow loomed larger and a calm though harsh voice demanded, "Be
quiet, General! Who is there?"

"We are!" answered Callandar, stepping as far from the tree shadow as
possible. "Picnickers from Coombe, in an unfortunate predicament. Our
motor has broken down, and we want the loan of a boat to get over to
Pine Lake station."

As he spoke he was vividly conscious of Esther close behind. So near was
she that he felt her warm breath on his neck. She was breathing quickly.
Was the child really frightened? Instinctively he put out his hand,
backward, and thrilled through every nerve when something cool and small
and tremulous slipped into it.

The canoe shot up to the float.

"You can't get any boat here."

There was no surprise or resentment in the harsh level voice. Only
determination, final and unshakable.

Esther felt the doctor's hand close around her own. Its clasp meant
everything, reassurance, protection, strength. In the darkness she
exulted and even ventured to frown belligerently in the direction of the
disagreeable canoeist. They could see her plainly now. A tall woman in a
man's coat with the sleeves rolled up displaying muscular arms. Her
face, even in the half-light, looked harsh and gaunt. With a skill,
which spoke of long practice, she sprang from the canoe, scarcely
rocking it, and proceeded to tie the painter securely to a heavy ring in
the float. Then she straightened herself and turned.

"I'll loose the dog!" she announced calmly.

Just that and no more! No arguments, no revilings, no display of any
human quality. There was something uncanny in her ruthlessness.

"If you do, it will be bad for the dog," said Callandar coldly. "Who
are you who threaten decent people?"

It was the tone of authority and for an instant she answered to it. Her
harsh voice held a faint Scotch accent.

"There'll be no decent people here at this hour o' the nicht. Be off.
You'll get no boat. Nor the hussy either. The dog's well used to
guarding it."

"How dare you!" Esther was so angry at being called a hussy that she
forgot how frightened she was and faced the woman boldly. But the old
hard eyes stared straight into her young indignant ones and showed no
softening. Next moment old Prue had pushed the girl aside and
disappeared in the darkness of the wooded path.

"Quick!" The doctor's tone was crisp and steady. "The canoe is our
chance. Jump in, while I hold it--in the bow, anywhere!"

"But the paddle! She has taken the paddle!" Even as she objected she
obeyed. The frail craft rocked as she slid into it, careful only not to
overbalance; next moment it rocked more dangerously and then settled
evenly into the water under the doctor's added weight.

"Sit tight!" Carefully he leaned over her, steadying the canoe with one
hand on the float. In the other she saw the glint of a knife, felt the
confining rope sever, felt the strong push which separated them from the
float and then, just as a great dog, fiercely silent now, bounded from
the path above, a paddle rose and dipped and they shot out into
the lake.

"If he follows and tries to overturn us I'll have to shoot him," said
the doctor cheerfully. "But he won't. Hark to him!"

The long bay of the baffled dog rose to the stars.

"There was an extra paddle in the boat-house," he explained. "I
took it out when we first came down--in case of accident. Old
She-who-must-be-obeyed must have forgotten it. It is a spliced paddle
but we shall manage excellently. Luckily I know how to use it. All I
need now is direction. Lady, 'where lies the land to which this ship
must go?'"

"'Far, far away is all the seamen know,'" capped Esther, laughing. "But
if you will keep on around that next point and then straight across I
think we ought to get there--Oh, look! there is the moon! We had
forgotten about the moon!"

They had indeed forgotten the moon. And the moon had been part of their
programme too. Both remembered at the same moment that, according to
schedule, they were now supposed to be almost home, running down Coombe
hill by moonlight.

"This is much nicer," said Esther, comfortably.

"But--" he did not finish his sentence. Why disturb her? Besides it
certainly was much nicer! The forgotten moon bore them no malice. A soft
radiance grew and spread around them, the whole sky and lake were
faintly shining though the goddess herself had not yet topped the trees.
The shadows were becoming blacker and more sharply defined. In front of
them the point loomed, inky black. Like a bird of the night the little
canoe shot towards it, skimmed its darkness and then slipped,
effortless, into shining silver space. The smile of the moon! Pleasing
old hypocrite! Always she smiles the same upon two in a canoe!

They were paddling toward her so that her light fell full on the
doctor's face--a clean cut, virile face, manly, stern, yet with a
whimsical sweetness hidden somewhere.

"How handsome he is!" thought Esther, exactly as the moon intended.

"Strong, too," her thought added as the light picked out his well-set
shoulders and the sweep of the arm which sped the paddle so lightly yet
so strongly up and down. Clear, yet soft, the moon showed no touch of
grey in the hair (although the grey was there) nor did she point out the
markings which were the legacy of strenuous years. Seen so, he appeared
no older than she who watched shyly from girlish eyes.

With a little shiver of utmost content Esther settled herself against
the thwart of the canoe.

Manlike he did not know the meaning of that shiver.

"Fool that I am!" he exclaimed. "You are cold, and behold we have left
behind the shawl of Mrs. Sykes' grandmother!"

"Indeed we have not! The dog would have torn it to bits. I assure you
the shawl of the venerated ancestress was in the canoe before I was."

"Then wrap yourself up. It is wonderful how cool the nights are."

Esther was not cold. But it is sometimes pleasant to be commanded. This
is what enables man to persist in a certain pleasing delusion regarding
woman's natural attitude. When she occasionally pleases herself by a
simulation of subjection he immediately thrills with pride, crying,
"Aha! I have her mastered!" Of co

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