He whistled to himself as he walked along. He

was very happy. He had a sensation as of one who has his goal in sight.

He thought of his father, his mother, and his two younger sisters, but

with no distress at absenting himself from them, although he lived in

accord with his family.

Twenty-five miles to his joyous youth seemed but

as a step across the road. He had no sense of separation. "What is

twenty-five miles?" he had said laughingly to his mother, when she had

kissed him good-by. He had no conception of her state of mind with

regard to the break in the home circle. He who was the breaker did not

even see the break. Therefore he walked along, conscious of an immense

joy in his own soul, and wholly unconscious of anything except joy in

the souls of those whom he had left behind. It was a glorious morning, a

white morning. The ground was covered with white frost, the trees, the

house-roofs, the very air, were all white. In the west a transparent

moon was slowly sinking; the east deepened with red and violet tints.

Then came the sun, upheaving above the horizon like a ship of glory, and

all the whiteness burned, and glowed, and radiated jewel-lights. James

looked about with the delight of a discoverer. It might have been his

first morning.

He begun to meet men going to their work, swinging tin

dinner-pails. Even these humble pails became glorified, they gave back

the sunlight like burnished silver. He smelled the odors of breakfast

upon the men's clothes. He held up his head high with a sort of

good-humored arrogance as he passed. He would have fought to the death

for any one of these men, but he knew himself, quite innocently, upon

superior heights of education, and trained thought, and ambition. He met

a man swinging a pail; he was coughing: a wretched, long rattle of a

cough. James stopped him, opened his little medicine-case, and produced

some pellets.

"Here, take one of these every hour until the cough is relieved, my

friend," said he.

The man stared, swallowed a pellet, stared again, in an odd, suspicious,

surly fashion, muttered something unintelligible and passed on.

There were three villages between Gresham and Alton: Red Hill,

Stanbridge, and Westover. James stopped in Red Hill at a quick-lunch

wagon, which was drawn up on the principal street under the lee of the

town hall, went in, ordered and ate with relish some hot frankfurters,

and drank some coffee. He had eaten a plentiful breakfast before

starting, but the keen air had created his appetite anew. Beside him at

the counter sat a young workingman, also eating frankfurters and

drinking coffee. Now and then he gave a sidelong and supercilious glance

at James's fine clothes. James caught one of the glances, and laughed

good-naturedly.

"These quick-lunch wagons are a mighty good idea," said he.

The man grunted and took a swallow of coffee.

"Where do you work?" asked James.

"None of your d---- business!" retorted the other man unexpectedly.

"Where do you work yourself?"

James stared at him, then he burst into a roar. For a second the man's

surly mouth did not budge, then the corners twitched a little.

"What in thunder are you mad about?" inquired James. "I am going to work

for Doctor Gordon in Alton, and I don't care a d---- where you work."

James spoke with the most perfect good nature, still laughing.

Then the man's face relaxed into a broad grin. "Didn't know but you were

puttin' on lugs," said he. "I am about tired of all those damned

benefactors comin' along and arskin' of a man whot's none of their

business, when a man knows all the time they don't care nothin' about

it, and then makin' a man take somethin' he don't want, so as to get

their names in the papers." The man sniffed a sniff of fury, then his

handsome blue eyes smiled pleasantly, even with mischievous confidence

into James's, and he swallowed more coffee.

"I am no benefactor, you can bet your life on that," said James. "I

don't mean to give you anything you want or don't want."

"Didn't know but you was one of that kind," returned the man.

"Why?"

The man eyed James's clothes expressively.

"Oh, you mean my clothes," said James. "Well, this suit and overcoat are

pretty fair, but if I were a benefactor I should be wearing seedy

clothes, and have my wallet stuffed with bills for other folks."

"You bet you wouldn't," said the other man. "That ain't the way

benefactors go to work. What be you goin' to do at Doc Gordon's?"

"Drive," replied James laconically.

"Guess you can't take care of hosses in no sech togs as them."

"I've got some others. I'm going to learn to doctor a little, too, if I

can."

The man surveyed him, then he burst into a great laugh. "Well," said he,

"when I git the measles I'll call you in."

"All right," said James, "I won't charge you a red cent. I'll doctor you

and all your children and your wife for nothing."

"Guess you won't need to charge nothin' for the wife and kids, seein' as

I ain't got none," said the man. "Ketch me saddled up with a woman an'

kids, if I know what I'm about. Them's for the benefactors. I live in a

little shanty I rigged up myself out of two packin' boxes. I've got 'em

on a man's medder here. He let me squat for nothin'. I git my meals

here, an' I work on the railroad, an' I've got a soft snap, with nobody

to butt in. Here, Mame, give us another cup of coffee. Mame's the girl I

want, if I could hev one. Ain't you, Mame?"

The girl, who was a blonde, with an exaggerated pompadour fastened with

aggressive celluloid pins, smiled pertly. "Reckon I h'ain't no more use

for men than you hev for women," said she, as she poured the coffee. All

that could be seen of her behind the counter was her head, and her waist

clad in a red blouse, pinned so high to her skirt in the rear that it

almost touched her shoulder blades. The blouse was finished at the neck

with a nice little turn-over collar fastened with a brooch set with

imitation diamonds and sapphires.

"Now, Mame, you know," said the man with assumed pathos, "that it is

only because I'm a poor devil that I don't go kerflop the minute I set

eyes on you. But you wouldn't like to live in boxes, would you? Would

you now?"

"Not till my time comes, and not in boxes, then, less I'm in a railroad

accident," replied the girl, with ghastly jocularity.

"She's got another feller, or you might git her if you've got a stiddy

job," the man said, winking at James with familiarity.

"Just my luck," said James. He looked at the girl, and thought her

pretty and pathetic, with a vulgar, almost tragic, prettiness and

pathos. She was anæmic and painfully thin. Her blouse was puffed out

over her flat chest. She looked worn out with the miserable little

tediums of life, with constant stepping over ant-hills of stupidity and

petty hopelessness. Her work was not, comparatively speaking, arduous,

but the serving of hot coffee and frankfurters to workingmen was not

progressive, and she looked as if her principal diet was the left-overs

of the stock in trade. She seemed to exhale an odor of musty sandwiches

and sausages and muddy coffee.

The man swallowed his second cup in fierce gulps. He glanced at his

Ingersoll watch. "Gee whiz!" said he. "It's time I was off! Good-by,

Mame."

The girl turned her head with a toss, and did not reply. "Good-by,"

James said.

The man grinned. "Good-by, Doc," he said. "I'll call you when I git the

measles. You're a good feller. If you'd been a benefactor I'd run you

out."

The man clattered down the steps of the gaudily painted little

structure. The girl whom he had called Mame turned and looked at James

with a sort of innocent boldness. "He's a queer feller," she observed.

"He seems to be."

"He is, you bet. Livin' in a house he's built out of boxes when he makes

big money. He's on strike every little while. I wouldn't look at him.

Don't know what he's drivin' at half the time. Reckon he's--" She

touched her head significantly.

"Lots of folks are," said James affably.

"That's so." She stared reflectively at James. "I'm keepin' this quick

lunch 'cause my father's sick," said she. "I see a lot of human nature

in here."

"I suppose you do."

"You bet. Every kind gits in here first and last, tramps up to swells

who think they're doin' somethin' awful funny to git frankfurters and

coffee in here. They must be hard driv."

"I suppose they are sometimes."

Mame's eyes, surveying James, suddenly grew sharp. "You ain't one?" she

asked accusingly.

"You bet not."

Mame's grew soft. "I knew you were all right," said she. "Sometimes they

say things to me that their fine lady friends would bounce 'em for, but

I knew the minute I saw you that you wasn't that kind if you be dressed

up like a gent. Reckon you've been makin' big money in your last place."

"Considerable," admitted James. He felt like a villain, but he had not

the heart to accuse himself of being a gentleman before this pathetic

girl.

Mame leaned suddenly over the counter, and her blonde crest nearly

touched his forehead. "Say," said she, in a whisper.

"What?" whispered James back.

"What he said ain't true. There ain't a mite of truth in it."

"What he said," repeated James vaguely.

Mame pouted. "How awful thick-headed you be," said she. "What he said

about my havin' a feller." She blushed rosily, and her eyes fell.

James felt his own face suffused. He pulled out his pocket-book, and

rose abruptly. "I'm sorry," he said with stupidity.

The rosy flush died away from the girl's face. "Nobody asked you to be

sorry," said she. "I could have any one of a dozen I know if I jest held

out my little finger."

"Of course, you could," James said. He felt apologetic, although he did

not know exactly why. He fumbled over the change, and at last made it

right with a quarter extra for the girl.

"It's a quarter too much," said she.

"Keep it, please."

She hesitated. She was frowning under her great blonde roll, her mouth

looked hurt.

"What a fuss about a quarter," said James, with a laugh. "Keep it.

That's a good girl."

Mame took a dingy handkerchief out of the bosom of her blouse, untied a

corner, and James heard a jingle of coins meeting. Then she laughed.

"You're an awful fraud," said she.

"Why?"

"You can't cheat me, if you did Bill Slattery."

"I think I don't know what you mean."

"You're a gent."

The girl's thin, coarse laughter rang out after James as he descended

the steps of the quick-lunch wagon. She opened the door directly after

he had closed it, and stood on the top step with the cold wind agitating

her fair hair. "Say," she called after him.

James turned as he walked away. "What is it?"

"Nothin', only I was foolin' you, and so was Bill. I've got a feller,

and Bill's him."

"I'll make you a present when you're married," James called back with a

laugh.

"It's to come off next summer," cried the girl.

"I won't forget," answered James. He knew the girl lied; that she was

not about to marry the workingman. He said to himself, as he strode on

refreshed with his coarse fare, that girls were extraordinary: first

they were bold to positive indecency, then modest to the borders of

insanity.

James walked on. He reached Stanbridge about noon. Then he was hungry

again. There was a good hotel there, and he made a substantial meal. He

had a smoke and a rest of half an hour, then he resumed his walk. He

soon passed the outskirts of Stanbridge, which was a small, old city,

then he was in the country. The houses were sparsely set well back from

the road. He met nobody, except an occasional countryman driving a

wood-laden team. Presently the road lay between stately groves of oaks,

although now and then they stood on one side only of the highway. Nearly

all the oaks bore a shag of dried leaves about their trunks, like mossy

beards of old men, only the shag was a bright russet instead of white.

The ground under the oaks was like cloth-of-gold under the sun, the

fallen leaves yet retained so much color. James heard a sharp croak,

then a crow flew with wide flaps of dark wings across the road and

perched on an oak bough. It cocked its head, and watched him wisely.

James whistled at it, but it did not stir. It remained with its head

cocked in that attitude of uncanny wisdom.

Suddenly James saw before him the figure of a girl, moving swiftly. She

must have come out of the wood. She went as freely as a woodland thing,

although she was conventionally dressed in a tailor suit of brown. Her

hat, too, was brown, and a brown feather curled over the brim. She

walked fast, with evidently as much enjoyment of the motion as James

himself. They both walked like winged things.

Suddenly James had a queer experience. One sense became transposed into

another, as one changes the key in music. He heard absolutely nothing,

but it was as if he saw a noise. He saw a man standing on the right

between him and the girl. The man had not made the slightest sound, he

was sure. James had good ears, but sound and not sight was what betrayed

him, or rather sound transposed into sight. He stood as motionless as a

tree himself. James knew that he had been looking at the girl. Now she

was looking at him. James felt a long shudder creep over him. He had

never been afraid of anything except fear. Now he was afraid of fear,

and there was something about the man which awakened this terror, yet it

was inexplicable. He was a middle-aged man, and distinctly handsome. He

was something above the medium height, and very well dressed. He wore a

fur-lined coat which looked opulent. He had gray hair and a black

mustache. There was nothing menacing in his face. He was, indeed,

smiling a curious retrospective smile, as if at his own thoughts.

Although his eyes regarded James attentively, this smiling mouth seemed

entirely oblivious of him. The man gave an odd impression, as of two

personalities: the one observant, with an animal-like observance for his

own weal or woe, the other observant with intelligence. It was possibly

this impression of a dual personality which gave James his quick sense

of horror. He walked on, feeling his very muscles shrink. Just before

James reached the man he emerged easily, with not the slightest

appearance of stealth, from the wood, and walked on before him with a

rapid, swinging stride. There were then three persons upon the road: the

girl in brown, the strange man in the fur-lined coat, and James Elliot.

James quickened his pace, but the other man kept ahead of him, and

reached the girl. He stopped and James broke into a run. He saw the man

place a hand upon the girl's shoulder, and make a motion as if to turn

her face toward his. James came up with a shout, and the man disappeared

abruptly, with a quick backward glance at James, into the wood.

The girl looked at James, and her little face under her brown plumed hat

was very white. "Oh," she gasped, as if she had always known him, "I am

so glad you are here! He frightened me terribly."

She tried to smile at James, although her poor little mouth was

quivering. "Who was he?" she asked.

"I don't know."

A sudden suspicion flashed into her eyes. "He wasn't with you?"

"No. I saw him on the edge of the woods back there, and I didn't like

his looks. When he started to follow you I hurried to catch up."

"Oh, thank you," said the girl fervently. "Do forgive me for asking if

you were with him. I knew you were not the minute I saw you. I did not

turn my face, although he tried to make me. I don't know why, but I do

know he was something terrible and wicked." The girl said this last with

a shudder. She caught hold of James's arm innocently, as a frightened

child might have done. "You don't think he will come back?"

"No, and if he does I will take care of you."

"He may be--armed."

Suddenly the girl reeled. "Don't let me faint away. I won't faint away,"

she said in an angry voice. James saw that she was actually biting her

lips to overcome the faintness.

"If you will sit down on that rock for a moment," said James, "I have

something in my medicine-case which will revive you. I am a doctor."

"I shall faint away if I sit down and give up to it, if I swallow your

whole case," said the girl weakly. "I know myself. Let me hold your arm

and walk, and don't make me talk, then I can get over it." She was

biting her lips almost to bleeding.

James walked on as he was bidden, with the slender little brown-clad

figure clinging to him. He realized that he had fallen in with a girl

who had a will which was possibly superior to anything in his

medicine-case when it came to overcoming fright.

They walked on until they came in sight of a farm-house, when the girl

spoke again, and James saw that the color was returning to her face. "I

am all right now," said she, and withdrew her hand from his arm. She

gave her head an angry, whimsical shake. "I am ashamed of myself," said

she, "but I was horribly frightened, and sometimes I do faint. I can

generally get the better of myself, but sometimes I can't. It always

makes me so angry. I do hope you don't think I am such an awful coward,

because I am not."

"I think most girls whom I have known would have made much more fuss

than you did," said James. "You never screamed."

"I never did scream in my life," said the girl. "I don't think I could.

I don't know how. I think if I did scream, I should certainly faint."

James stopped and opened his medicine-case. "I think you had better take

just a swallow of brandy," said he.

The girl thrust back the bottle which he offered her with high disdain.

"Brandy," said she, "just because I have been frightened a little! I

should be ashamed of myself if I did such a thing. I am ashamed now for

almost fainting away, but I should never forgive myself if I took brandy

because of it. If I haven't nerve enough to keep straight without

brandy, I should be a pretty poor specimen of a girl." She looked at him

indignantly, and James saw what he had not seen before (he had been so

engrossed with the strangeness of the situation), that she was a

beautiful girl with a singular type of beauty. She was very small, but

she gave the impression of intense springiness and wiriness. Although

she was thin, no one could have called her delicate. She looked as much

alive as a flame, with nerves on the surface from head to heel. Her eyes

were blue, not large, but full of light, her hair, which tossed around

her face in a soft fluff, was ash-blonde. Brown was the last color,

theoretically, which she should have worn, but it suited her. The ash

and brown, the two neutral tints, served to bring out the blue fire of

her eyes and the intense red of her lips. However, her beauty lay not so

much in her regular features as in the wonderful flame-like quality

which animated them, and which they assumed when she spoke or listened.

In repose, her face was as neutral as a rock or dead leaf. It was

neither beautiful nor otherwise. When it was animated, it was as if the

rock gave out silver lights of mica and rosy crystal under strong light,

and as if the dead leaf leapt into flame. James thought her much

prettier than any of his sisters or their friends, but he was led quite

unknowingly into this opinion, because of his own position as her

protector. That made him realize his own male gorgeousness and strength,

and he really saw the girl with such complacency instead of himself.

They walked along, and all at once he stopped short. Something occurred

to him, which, strange to say, had not occurred before. He was not in

the least cowardly. He was brave almost to foolhardiness. All at once

it occurred to him that he ought to follow the man.

"Good Lord!" said he and stopped.

"What is the matter?" asked the girl.

"Why, I must follow that man. He is a suspicious character. He ought not

to be left at large."

"I suppose you don't care if you leave me alone," said the girl

accusingly.

James stared at her doubtfully. There was that view of the situation.

"I am going to see my friend Annie Lipton, who lives in Westover. There

is half a mile of lonely road before I get there. That man, for all I

know, may be keeping sight of us in the woods over there. While you are

going back to chase him, he may come up with me. Well, run along if you

want to. I am not afraid." But the girl's lips quivered, and she paled

again.

James glanced at the stretch of road ahead. There was not a house in

sight. Woods were on one side, on the other was a rolling expanse of

meadowland covered with dried last year's grass, like coarse

oakum-colored hair.

"I think I had better keep on with you," James said.

"You can do exactly as you choose," the girl replied defiantly, but

tremulously. "I am not in the least dependent upon men to escort me. I

wander miles around by myself. This is the first time I have seemed to

be in the slightest danger. I dare say there was no danger this time,

only he came up behind like a cat, and--"

"He didn't say anything?"

"No, he didn't speak. He only tried to make me turn my head, so he could

see my face, and directly it seemed to me that I must die rather than

let him. He was trying to make me turn my head. I think maybe he was an

insane man."

"I will go on with you," said James.

They walked on for the half mile of which the girl had spoken. A sudden

shyness seemed to have come over both of them. Then they began to come

in sight of houses. "I am not afraid now," said the girl, "but I do

think you are very foolish if you go back alone and try to hunt that

man. Ten chances to one he is armed, and you haven't a thing to defend

yourself with, except that medicine-case."

"I have my fists," replied James indignantly.

"Fists don't count much against a revolver."

"Well, I am going to try," said James with emphasis.

"Good-by, then. You are treating me shamefully, though."

James stared at her in amazement. She was actually weeping, tears were

rolling over her cheeks.

"What do you mean?" said he. "Don't feel so badly."

"You can't be very quick-witted not to see. If you should meet that man,

and get killed, I should really be the one who killed you and not the

man."

"Why, no, you would not."

The girl stamped her foot. "Yes, I should, too," said she, half-sobbing.

"You would not have been killed except for me. You know you would not."

She spoke as if she actually saw the young man dead before her, and was

indignant because of it, and he burst into a peal of laughter.

"Laugh if you want to," said she. "It does not seem to me any laughing

matter to go and get yourself killed by me, and my having that on my

mind my whole life. I think I should go mad." Her voice shook, an

expression of horror came into her blue eyes.

James laughed again. "Very well, then," he said, "to oblige you I won't

get killed."

He, in fact, began to consider that the day was waning, and what a

wild-goose chase it would probably be for him to attempt to follow the

man. So again they walked on until they reached the main street of

Westover.

Westover was a small village, rather smaller than Gresham. They passed

three gin-mills, a church, and a grocery store. Then the girl stopped at

the corner of a side street. "My friend lives on this street," said she.

"Thank you very much. I don't know what I should have done if you had

not come. Good-by!" She went so quickly that James was not at all sure

that she heard his answering good-by. He thought again how very handsome

she was. Then he began to wonder where she lived, and how she would get

home from her friend's house, if the friend had a brother who would

escort her. He wondered who her friends were to let a girl like that

wander around alone in a State which had not the best reputation for

safety. He entertained the idea of waiting about until she left her

friend's house, then he considered the possible brother, and that the

girl herself might resent it, and he kept on. The western sky was

putting on wonderful tints of cowslip and rose deepening into violet. He

began considering his own future again, relegating the girl to the

background. He must be nearing Alton, he thought. After a three-mile

stretch of farming country, he saw houses again. Lights were gleaming

out in the windows. He heard wheels, and the regular trot of a horse

behind him, then a mud-bespattered buggy passed him, a shabby buggy, but

a strongly built one. The team of horses was going at a good clip. James

stood on one side, but the team and buggy had no sooner passed than he

heard a whoa! and a man's face peered around the buggy wing, not at

James, but at his medicine-case. James could just discern the face,

bearded and shadowy in the gathering gloom. Then a voice came. It

shouted, one word, the expressive patois of the countryside, that word

which may be at once a question and a salute, may express almost any

emotion. "Halloo!" said the voice.

This halloo involved a question, or so James understood it. He quickened

his pace, and came alongside the buggy. The face, more distinct now,

surveyed him, its owner leaning out over the side of the buggy. "Who are

you? Where are you bound?"

James answered the latter question. "I am going to Alton."

"To Doctor Gordon's?"

"Yes."

"Then you are Doctor Elliot?"

"Yes."

"Get in."

James climbed into the buggy. The other man took up the reins, and the

horse resumed his quick trot.

"You didn't come by train?" remarked the man.

"No. You are Doctor Gordon, I suppose?"

"Yes, I am. Why the devil did you walk?"

"To save my money," replied James, laughing. He realized nothing to be

ashamed of in his reply.

"But I thought your father was well-to-do."

"Yes, he is, but we don't ride when it costs money and we can walk. I

knew if I got to Alton by night, it would be soon enough. I like to

walk." James said that last rather defiantly. He began to realize a

certain amazement on the other man's part which might amount to an

imputation upon his father. "I have plenty of money in my pocket," he

added, "but I wanted the walk."

Doctor Gordon laughed. "Oh, well, a walk of twenty-five miles is nothing

to a young fellow like you, of course," he said. "I can understand that

you may like to stretch your legs. But you'll have to drive if you are

ever going to get anywhere when you begin practice with me."

"I suppose you have calls for miles around?"

"Rather." Doctor Gordon sighed. "It's a dog's life. I suppose you

haven't got that through your head yet?"

"I think it is a glorious profession," returned James, with his haughty

young enthusiasm.

"I wasn't talking about the profession," said the doctor; "I was talking

of the man who has to grind his way through it. It's a dog's life.

Neither your body nor your soul are your own. Oh, well, maybe you'll

like it."

"You seem to," remarked James rather pugnaciously.

"I? What can I do, young man, but stick to it whether I like it or not?

What would they do? Yes, I suppose I am fool enough to like a dog's

life, or rather to be unwilling to leave it. No money could induce me

anyhow. I suppose you know there is not much money in it?"

James said that he had not supposed a fortune was to be made in a

country practice.

"The last bill any of them will pay is the doctor's," said Doctor

Gordon. Then he added with a laugh, "especially when the doctor is

myself. They have to pay a specialist from New York, but I wait until

they are underground, and the relatives, I find, stick faster to the

monetary remains than the bark to a tree. If I hadn't a little private

fortune, and my--sister a little of her own, I expect we should starve."

James noticed with a little surprise the doctor's hesitation before he

spoke of his sister. It seemed then that he was not married. Somehow,

James had thought of him as married as a matter of course.

Doctor Gordon hastened to explain, as if divining the other's attitude.

"I dare say you don't know anything about my family relations," said he.

"My widowed sister, Mrs. Ewing, keeps house for me. I live with her and

her daughter. I think you will like them both, and I think they will

like you, though I'll be hanged if I have grasped anything of you so far

but your medicine-case and your voice. Your voice is all right. You give

yourself away by it, and I always like that."

James straightened himself a little. There was something bantering in

the other's tone. It made him feel young, and he resented being made to

feel young. He himself at that time felt older than he ever would feel

again. He realized that he was not being properly estimated. "If," said

he, with some heat, "a patient can make out anything by my voice as to

what I think, I miss my guess."

"I dare say not," said Doctor Gordon, and his own voice was as if he put

the matter aside.

He spoke to the horse, whose trot quickened, and they went on in

silence.

At last James began to feel rather ashamed of himself. He unstiffened.

"I had quite an exciting and curious experience after I left

Stanbridge," said he.

"Did you?" said the other in an absent voice.

James went on to relate the matter in detail. His companion turned an

intent face upon him as he proceeded. "How far back was it?" he asked,

and his tone was noticeably agitated.

"Just after I left the last house in Stanbridge. We went on together to

Westover. She mentioned something about going to see a friend there. I

think Lipton was the name, and she left me suddenly."

"What was the girl like?"

"Small and slight, and very pretty."

"Dressed in brown?"

"Yes."

"How did the man look?" Doctor Gordon's voice fairly alarmed the young

man.

"I hardly can say. I saw him distinctly, but only for a second. The

impression he gave me was of a middle-aged man, although he looked

young."

"Good-looking?"

"My God, no!" said James, as the man's face seemed to loom up before him

again. "He looked like the devil."

"A man may look like the devil, and yet be distinctly handsome."

"Well, I suppose he was; but give me the homeliest face on earth rather

than a face like that man's, if I must needs have anything to do with

him." The young fellow's voice broke. He was very young. He caught the

other man by his rough coat sleeve. "See here, Doctor Gordon," said he,

"my profession is to save life. That is the main end of it but, but--I

don't honestly know what I should think right, if I were asked to save

that man's life."

"Was he well dressed?"

"More than well dressed, richly, a fur-lined coat--"

"Tall?"

"Yes, above the medium, but he stooped a little, like a cat, sort of

stretched to the ground like an animal, when he hurried along after the

girl in front of me."

Doctor Gordon struck the horse with his whip, and he broke into a

gallop. "We are almost home," said he. "I shall have to leave you with

slight ceremony. I have to go out again immediately."

Doctor Gordon had hardly finished speaking before they drew up in front

of a white house on the left of the road. "Get out," he said

peremptorily to James. The front door opened, and a parallelogram of

lighted interior became visible. In this expanse of light stood a tall

woman's figure. "Clara, this is the new doctor," called out Doctor

Gordon. "Take him in and take care of him."

"Have you got to go away again?" said the woman's voice. It was sweet

and rich, but had a curious sad quality in it.

"Yes, I must. I shall not be gone long. Don't wait supper."

"Aren't you going to change the horse?"

"Can't stop. Go right in, Elliot. Clara, look after him."

James Elliot found himself in the house, confronting the most beautiful

woman he had ever seen, as the rapid trot of the doctor's horse receded

in vistas of sound.

James almost gasped. He had never seen such a woman. He had seen pretty

girls. Now he suddenly realized that a girl was not a woman, and no more

to be compared with her than an uncut gem with one whose facets take the

utmost light.

The boy stood staring at this wonderful woman. She extended her hand to

him, but he did not see it. She said some gracious words of greeting to

him, but he did not hear them. She might have been the Venus de Milo for

all he heard or realized of sentient life in her. He was rapt in

contemplation of herself, so rapt that he was oblivious of her. She

smiled. She was accustomed to having men, especially very young men,

take such an attitude on first seeing her. She did not wait any longer,

but herself took the young man's hand, and drew him gently into the

room, and spoke so insistently that she compelled him to leave her and

attend. "I suppose you are Doctor Gordon's assistant?" she said.

James relapsed into the tricks of his childhood. "Yes, ma'am," he

replied. Then he blushed furiously, but the woman seemed to notice

neither the provincial term nor his confusion. He found himself somehow,

he did not know how, divested of his overcoat, and the vision had

disappeared, having left some words about dinner ringing in his ears,

and he was sitting before a hearth-fire in a large leather easy-chair.

Then he looked about the room in much the same dazed fashion in which he

had contemplated the woman. He had never seen a room like it. He was

used to conventionality, albeit richness, and a degree even of luxury.

Here were absolute unconventionality, richness, and luxury of a kind

utterly strange to him. The room was very large and long, extending

nearly the whole length of the house. There were many windows with

Eastern rugs instead of curtains. There were Eastern things hung on the

walls which gave out dull gleams of gold and silver and topaz and

turquoise. There were a great many books on low shelves. There were

bronzes, jars, and squat idols. There were a few pieces of Chinese ivory

work. There were many skins of lions, bears, and tigers on the floor,

besides a great Persian rug which gleamed like a blurred jewel. Besides

the firelight there was only one great bronze lamp to illuminate the

room. This lamp had a red shade, which cast a soft, fiery glow over

everything. There were not many pictures. The rich Eastern stuffs, and

even a skin or two of tawny hue, covered most of the wall-spaces above

the book-cases, giving backgrounds of color to bronzes and ivory

carvings, but there was one picture at the farther end of the room which

attracted James's notice. All that he could distinguish from where he

sat was a splash of splendid red.

He gazed, and his curiosity grew. Finally he rose, traversed the room,

and came close to the picture. It was a portrait of the woman who had

met him at the door. The red was the red of a splendid robe of velvet.

The portrait was evidently the work of no mean artist. The texture of

the velvet was something wonderful, so were the flesh tones; but James

missed something in the face. The portrait had been painted, he knew

instinctively, before some great change had come into the woman's heart,

which had given her another aspect of beauty.

James turned away. Then he noticed something else which seemed rather

odd about the room. All the windows were furnished with heavy wooden

shutters, and, early as it was, hardly dark, all were closed, and

fastened securely. James somehow got an impression of secrecy, that it

was considered necessary that no glimpse of the interior should be

obtained from without after the lamp was lit. They sat often carelessly

at his own home of an evening with the shades up, and all the interior

of the room plainly visible from the road. An utter lack of secrecy was

in James's own character. He scowled a little, as he returned to his

seat by the fire. He was too confused to think clearly, but he was

conscious of a certain homesickness for the wonted things of his life,

when the door opened and the woman reëntered.

James rose, and she spoke in her sweet voice. It was rather lower

pitched than the voices of most women, and had a resonant quality. "Your

room is quite ready, Doctor Elliot," said she. "Your trunk is there. If

you would like to go there before dinner, I will pilot you. We have but

one maid, and she is preparing the dinner, which will be ready as soon

as you are. I hope Doctor Gordon and Clemency will have returned by that

time, too."

By Clemency James understood that she meant her daughter, of whom Doctor

Gordon had spoken. He wondered at the unusual name, as he followed his

hostess. His room was on the same floor as the living-room. She threw

open a door at the other side of the hall, and James saw an exceedingly

comfortable apartment with a hearth-fire, with book-shelves, and a

couch-bed covered with a rug, and a desk. "I thought you would prefer

this room," said the woman. "There are others on the second floor, but

this has the advantage of your being able to use it as a sitting-room,

and you may like to have your friends, whom I trust you will find in

Alton, come in from time to time. You will please make yourself quite

at home."

James had not yet fairly comprehended the beauty of the woman. He was

still too dazzled. Had he gone away at that time, he could not for the

life of him have described her, but he did glance, as a woman might have

done, at her gown. It was of a soft heavy red silk, trimmed with lace,

and was cut out in a small square at the throat. This glimpse of firm

white throat made James wonder as to evening costume for himself. At

home he never dreamed of such a thing, but here it might be different.

His hostess divined his thoughts. She smiled at him as if he were a

child. "No," said she, "you do not need to dress for dinner. Doctor

Gordon never does when we are by ourselves."

Then she went away, closing the door softly after her.

James noticed that over the windows of this room were only ordinary

shades, and curtains of some soft red stuff. There were no shutters. He

looked about him. He was charmed with his room, and it did away to a

great extent with his feeling of homesickness. It was not unlike what

his room at college had been. It was more like all rooms. He had no

feeling of the secrecy which the great living-room gave him, and which

irritated him. He brushed his clothes and his hair, and washed his hands

and face. While he was doing so he heard wheels and a horse's fast trot.

He guessed immediately that the doctor had returned. He therefore, as

soon as he had completed the slight changes in his toilet, started to

return to the living-room. Crossing the hall he met Doctor Gordon, who

seized him by the shoulder, and whispered in his ear, "Not a word before

Mrs. Ewing about what happened this afternoon."

James nodded. "More mystery," thought he with asperity.

"You have not spoken of it to her already, I hope," said Doctor Gordon

with quick anxiety.

"No, I have not. I have scarcely seen her."

"Well, not a word, I beg of you. She is very nervous."

The doctor had been removing his overcoat and hat. When he had hung them

on some stag's horn in the hall, he went with James into the

living-room.

There, beside the fire, sat the girl in brown whom James had met that

afternoon on the road.




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