During the months they had been thrown together so much, Dave had taken great interest in the Doctor's reports of the experiments he was making in treating the disease. When the Doctor was told that Mr. Bowles had gone back to the coast, having found what he wanted and made his notes for his next book, and consequently Dave was free to stay and nurse him, he gave a sigh of relief.

Dave stopped his thanks almost gruffly.

"There's more than one reason for my staying," he said. "I've been sick among strangers in a strange country, myself, and I know how it feels.

Besides, I'm interested in seeing if this new treatment of yours works out on a white man as well as it did on these natives. I'll be doing as much in the way of scientific research, keeping a chart on you, as if I were taking notes for Mr. Bowles."

That was a long speech for Dave, the longest that he made during the Doctor's illness. But in the days which followed, one might well have wondered if there was not a greater reason than those he offered for such devoted attendance. He was always within call, always so quick to notice a want that usually a wish was gratified before it could be expressed. His was a devotion too constant to be prompted merely by sympathy for a fellow-country-man or interest in medical experiments.

Once, when the Doctor was convalescing, he opened his eyes to find his silent attendant sitting beside him reading, and studied him for some time, un.o.bserved.

"Dave," he said, after watching him a while--"it's the queerest thing--lately every time I look at you I'm reminded of home. You must resemble someone I used to know back there, but for the life of me I can't recall who."

Dave answered indifferently, without glancing up from the page.

"There's probably a thousand fellows that look like me. I'm medium height and about every third person you see back in the States has gray eyes like mine, and just the ordinary every-day sort of features that I have."

The Doctor made no answer. It never would have occurred to him to tell Dave in what way his face differed from the many others of his type.

There was a certain kindliness of twinkle in the gray eyes at times, and always a straightforward honesty of gaze that made one instinctively trust him. There was strength of purpose in the resolute set of his mouth, and one could not imagine him being turned back on any road which he had made up his mind to travel to the end.

Several days after that when the Doctor was sitting up outside the tent, the resemblance to someone whom he could not recall, puzzled him again.

Dave was whittling, his lips pursed up as he whistled softly in an absent-minded sort of way.

"Dave," exclaimed the Doctor, "there's something in the way you sit there, whittling and whistling that brings little old Provincetown right up before my eyes. I can see old Captain Ames sitting there on the wharf on a coil of rope, whittling just as you are doing, and joking with Sam and the crew as they pile into the boat to go out to the weirs. I can see the nets spread out to dry alongsh.o.r.e, and smell tar and codfish as plain as if it were here right under my nose. And down in Fishburn Court there's the little house that was always a second home to me, with Uncle Darcy pottering around in the yard, singing his old sailors' songs."

The Doctor closed his eyes and drew in a long, slow breath.

"Um! There's the most delicious smell coming out of that kitchen--blueberry pies that Aunt Elspeth's baking. What wouldn't I give this minute for one of those good, juicy blueberry pies of hers, smoking hot. I can smell it clear over here in China. There never was anything in the world that tasted half so good. I was always tagging around after Uncle Darcy, as I called him. He was the Towncrier, and one of those staunch, honest souls who make you believe in the goodness of G.o.d and man no matter what happens to shake the foundations of your faith."

The Doctor opened his eyes and looked up inquiringly, startled by the knocking over of the stool on which Dave had been sitting. He had risen abruptly and gone inside the tent.

"Go on," he called back. "I can hear you."

He seemed to be looking for something, for he was striding up and down in its narrow s.p.a.ce. The Doctor raised his voice a trifle.

"That's all I had to say. I didn't intend to bore you talking about people and places you never heard of. But it just came over me in a big wave--that feeling of homesickness that makes you feel you've got to get back or die. Did you ever have it?"

"Yes," came the answer in an indifferent tone. "Several times."

"Well, it's got me now, right by the throat."

Presently he called, "Dave, while you're in there I wish you'd look in my luggage and see what newspapers are folded up with it. I have a dim recollection that a _Provincetown Advocate_ came about the time I was taken sick and I never opened it.

"Ah, that's it!" he exclaimed when Dave emerged presently, holding out the newspaper. "Look at the cut across the top of the first page. Old Provincetown itself. It's more for the name of the town printed across that picture of the harbor than for the news that I keep on taking the paper. Ordinarily, I never do more than glance at the news items, but there's time to-day to read even the advertis.e.m.e.nts. You've no idea how good those familiar old names look to me."

He read some of them aloud, smiling over the memories they awakened. But he read without an auditor, for Dave found he had business with one of the missionaries, and put off to attend to it. On his return he was greeted with the announcement:

"Dave, I want to get out of here. I'm sure there must be a big pile of mail waiting for me right now in Hong-Kong, and I'm willing to risk the trip. Let's start back to-morrow."

Several days later they were in Hong-Kong, enjoying the luxuries of civilization in the big hotel. Still weak from his recent illness and fatigued by the hardships of his journey, Doctor Huntingdon did not go down to lunch the day of their arrival. It was served in his room, and as he ate he stopped at intervals to take another dip into the pile of mail which had been brought up to him.

In his methodical way he opened the letters in the order of their arrival, beginning with the one whose postmark showed the earliest date. It took a long time to finish eating on account of these pauses.

Hop Ching was bringing in his coffee when Dave came back, having had not only his lunch in the dining-room, but a stroll through the streets afterward. He found Doctor Huntingdon with a photograph propped up in front of him, studying it intently while Hop Ching served the coffee.

The Doctor pa.s.sed the photograph to Dave.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Towncrier and his La.s.s_]

"Take it over to the window where you can get a good light on it," he commanded. "Isn't that a peach of a picture? That's my little daughter and the old friend I'm always quoting. The two seem to be as great chums as he and I used to be. I don't want to bore you, Dave, but I would like to read you this letter that she wrote to her mother, and her mother sent on to me. In the first place I'm proud of her writing such a letter. I had no idea she could express herself so well, and secondly the subject matter makes it an interesting doc.u.ment.

"On my little girl's birthday Uncle Darcy took her out in his boat, _The Betsey_. The name of that old boat certainly does sound good to me! He told her--but wait! I'd rather read it to you in her own words. It'll give you such a good idea of the old man. Perhaps I ought to explain that he had a son who got into trouble some ten years ago, and left home. He was just a little chap when I saw him last, hardly out of dresses, the fall I left home for college.

"Uncle Darcy and Aunt Elspeth were fairly foolish about him. He had come into their lives late, you see, after their older children died. I don't believe it would make any difference to them what he'd do. They would welcome him back from the very gallows if he'd only come. His mother never has believed he did anything wrong, and the hope of the old man's life is that his 'Danny,' as he calls him, will make good in some way--do something to wipe out the stain on his name and come back to him."

The Doctor paused as if waiting for some encouragement to read.

"Go on," said Dave. "I'd like to hear it, best in the world."

He turned his chair so that he could look out of the window at the harbor. The Chinese sampans of every color were gliding across the water like a flock of gaily-hued swans. He seemed to be dividing his attention between those native boats and the letter when the Doctor first began to read. It was Georgina's rainbow letter, and the colors of the rainbow were repeated again and again by the reds and yellows and blues of that fleet of sampans.

But as the Doctor read on Dave listened more intently, so intently, in fact, that he withdrew his attention entirely from the window, and leaning forward, buried his face in his hands, his elbows resting on his knees. The Doctor found him in this att.i.tude when he looked up at the end, expecting some sort of comment. He was used to Dave's silences, but he had thought this surely would call forth some remark. Then as he studied the bowed figure, it flashed into his mind that the letter must have touched some chord in the boy's own past. Maybe Dave had an old father somewhere, longing for his return, and the memory was breaking him all up.

Silently, the Doctor turned aside to the pile of letters still unread.

Georgina's stern little note beginning "Dear Sir" was the next in order and was in such sharp contrast to the loving, intimate way she addressed her mother, that he felt the intended reproach of it, even while it amused and surprised him. But it hurt a little. It wasn't pleasant to have his only child regard him as a stranger. It was fortunate that the next letter was the one in which she hastened to call him "a Saint-George-and-the-dragon sort of father."

When he read Barbara's explanation of his long silence and Georgina's quick acceptance of it, he wanted to take them both in his arms and tell them how deeply he was touched by their love and loyalty; that he hadn't intended to be neglectful of them or so absorbed in his work that he put it first in his life. But it was hard for him to put such things into words, either written or spoken. He had left too much to be taken for granted he admitted remorsefully to himself.

For a long time he sat staring sternly into s.p.a.ce. So people had been gossiping about him, had they? And Barbara and the baby had heard the whispers and been hurt by them----He'd go home and put a stop to it. He straightened himself up and turned to report his sudden decision to Dave. But the chair by the window was empty. The Doctor glanced over his shoulder. Dave had changed his seat and was sitting behind him. They were back to back, but a mirror hung in such a way the Doctor could see Dave's face.

With arms crossed on a little table in front of him, he was leaning forward for another look at the photograph which he had propped up against a vase. A hungry yearning was in his face as he bent towards it, gazing into it as if he could not look his fill. Suddenly his head went down on his crossed arms in such a hopeless fashion that in a flash Doctor Huntingdon divined the reason, and recognized the resemblance that had haunted him. Now he understood why the boy had stayed behind to nurse him. Now a dozen trifling incidents that had seemed of no importance to him at the time, confirmed his suspicion.

His first impulse was to cry out "_Dan!_" but his life-long habit of repression checked him. He felt he had no right to intrude on the privacy which the boy guarded so jealously. But Uncle Darcy's son! Off here in a foreign land, bowed down with remorse and homesickness! How he must have been tortured with all that talk of the old town and its people!

A great wave of pity and yearning tenderness swept through the Doctor's heart as he sat twisted around in his chair, staring at that reflection in the mirror. He was uncertain what he ought to do. He longed to go to him with some word of comfort, but he shrank from the thought of saying anything which would seem an intrusion.

Finally he rose, and walking across the room, laid his hand on the bowed shoulder with a sympathetic pressure.

"Look here, my boy," he said, in his deep, quiet voice. "I'm not asking you what the trouble is, but whatever it is you'll let me help you, won't you? You've given me the right to ask that by all you've done for me. Anything I could do would be only too little for one who has stood by me the way you have. I want you to feel that I'm your friend in the deepest meaning of that word. You can count on me for anything." Then in a lighter tone as he gave the shoulder a half-playful slap he added, "I'm _for_ you, son."

The younger man raised his head and straightened himself up in his chair.

"You wouldn't be!" he exclaimed, "if you knew who I am." Then he blurted out the confession: "I'm Dan Darcy. I can't let you go on believing in me when you talk like that."

"But I knew it when I said what I did," interrupted Doctor Huntingdon.

"It flashed over me first when I saw you looking at your father's picture. No man could look at a stranger's face that way. Then I knew what the resemblance was that has puzzled me ever since I met you. The only wonder to me is that I did not see it long ago."

"You knew it," repeated Dan slowly, "and yet you told me to count you as a friend in the deepest meaning of that word. How could you mean it?"

The Doctor's answer came with deep impressiveness.

"Because, despite whatever slip you may have made as a boy of eighteen, you have grown into a man worthy of such a friendship. A surgeon in my position learns to read character, learns to know an honest man when he sees one. No matter what lies behind you that you regret, I have every confidence in you now, Dan. I am convinced you are worthy to be the son of even such a man as Daniel Darcy."