"A big-bug, most likely," Mrs. Peter Pry said, when, after her pack, she
brought her knitting for a few moments into Ethelyn's room and wondered
who the man could be.
Ethelyn did not care particularly who he was, provided he did not cough
nights and keep her awake, in which case she should feel constrained to
change her room, an alternative she did not care to contemplate, as she
had become more attached to No. 101 than she had at first supposed
possible. Ethelyn was very anxious that day, and, had she believed in
presentiments, she would have thought that something was about to befall
her, so heavy was the gloom weighing upon her spirits, and so dark the
future seemed. She was going to have a headache, she feared, and as a
means of throwing it off, she started, after ten, for a walk to Rocky
Run, a distance of a mile or more. It was a cool, hazy July afternoon,
such as always carried Ethie back to Chicopee and the days of her happy
girlhood, when her heart was not so heavy and sad as it was now. With
thoughts of Chicopee came also thoughts of Richard, and Ethie's eyes
were moist with tears as she looked wistfully toward the setting sun and
wondered if he ever thought of her now or had forgotten her, and was the
story true of his seeking for a divorce. That rumor had troubled Ethie
greatly, and was the reason why she did not improve as the physician
hoped she would when she first came to Clifton. Sitting down upon the
bridge across the creek, she bowed her head in her hands and went over
again all the dreadful past, blaming herself now more than she did
Richard, and wishing that much could be undone of all that had
transpired to make her what she was, and while she sat there the Western
train appeared in view, and, mechanically rising to her feet, Ethie
turned her steps back toward the Cure, standing aside to let the long
train go by, and feeling, when it passed her, a strange, sudden throb,
as if it were fraught with more than ordinary interest to her. Usually,
that Western train, the distant roll of whose wheels and the echo of
whose scream quickened so many hearts waiting for news from home, had no
special interest for her. It never brought her a letter. Her name was
never called in the exciting distribution which took place in the parlor
or on the long piazza after the eight-o'clock mail had arrived, and so
she seldom heeded it; but to-night there was a difference, and she
watched the long line curiously until it passed the corner by the old
brown farmhouse and disappeared from view. It had left the station long
ere she reached the Cure, for she had walked slowly, and lights were
shining from the different rooms, and there was a sound of singing in
the parlor, and the party of croquet players had come up from the lawn,
and ladies were hurrying toward the bathroom, when she came in and
climbed the three flights of stairs which led to the fourth floor. There
was a light shining through the ventilator of No. 102, the door was
partly ajar, and the doctor was there, asking some questions of the tall
figure, whose outline Ethelyn dimly descried as she went into her room.
There was more talking after a little--more going in and out, while Mary
Ann brought up some supper on a tray, and John brought up a traveling
trunk much larger than himself, and then, without Mrs. Pry's assurance,
Ethie knew that the occupant of No. 102 had arrived.