"I'm ready," said she. But she did not lay down her bundle. She was not ready for her task, poor child. She quailed before it. She quailed so much that she feared to stir lest he should see that she had no command over her movements.

The man who watched without seeing wondered that she stood so still and spoke so briefly. But only for a moment. He thought he understood her hesitation, and a look of great earnestness replaced his former one of grave decision.

"I know that in doing this I am going beyond my sacred compact with Miss Challoner," he said. "I never thought of illness,--at least, of illness on my part. I never dreamt that I, always so well, always so full of life, could know such feebleness as this, feebleness which is all of the body, Doris, leaving the mind free to dream and long. Talk of her, child. Tell me all over again just how she looked and spoke that day you saw her in New York."

"Would it not be better for me to write my letter first? Papa will be coming soon and Truda can never cook your bird as you like it."

Surprised now by something not quite natural in her manner, he caught at her hand and held her as she was moving away.

"You are tired," said he. "I've wearied you with my commission and complaints. Forgive me, dear child, and--"

"You are mistaken," she interrupted softly. "I am not tired; I only wished to do the important thing first. Shall I get my desk? Do you really wish me to write?"

"Yes," said he, softly dropping her hand. "I wish you to write. It will ensure me good sleep, and sleep will make me strong. A few words, Doris; just a few words."

She nodded; turning quickly away to hide her tears. His smile had gone to her very soul. It was always a beautiful one, his chief personal attraction, but at this moment it seemed to concentrate within it the unspoken fervours and the boundless expectations of a great love, and she who was the aim and cause of all this sweetness lay in unresponsive silence in a distant tomb!

But Doris' own smile was not lacking in encouragement and beauty when she came back a few minutes later and sat down by his side to write.

His melted before it, leaving his eyes very earnest as he watched her bending figure and the hard-worked little hand at its unaccustomed task.

"I must give her daily exercises," he decided within himself. "That look of pain shows how difficult this work is for her. It must be made easy at any cost to my time. Such beauty calls for accomplishment. I must not neglect so plain a duty."

Meantime, she was struggling to find words in face of that great Dread.

She had written Dear Miss Challoner and was staring in horror at the soulless words. Only her sense of duty upheld her. Gladly would she have torn the sheet in two and rushed away. How could she add sentences to this hollow phrase, the mere employment of which seemed a sacrilege.

Dear Miss Challoner. Oh, she was dear, but--

Unconsciously the young head drooped, and the pen slid from her hand.

"I cannot," she murmured, "I cannot think what to say."

"Shall I help you?" came softly from the bed. "I'll try and not forget that it is Doris writing."

"If you will be so good," she answered, with renewed courage. "I can put the words down if you will only find them for me."

"Write then. 'Dear Miss Challoner!"

"I have already written that."

"Why do you shudder?"

"I'm cold. I've been cold all day. But never mind that, Mr. Brotherson.

Tell me how to begin my letter."

"This way. 'I've not been able to answer your kind letter, because I have had to play nurse for some three or four weeks to a very fretful and exacting patient.' Have you written that?"

"No," said Doris, bending over her desk till her curls fell in a tangle over her white cheeks. "I do not like to," she protested at last, with an attempt at naivete which seemed real enough to him.

"Well, leave out the fretful if you must, but keep in the exacting. I have been exacting, you know."

Silence, broken only by the scratching of the stubborn, illy-directed pen.

"It's down," she whispered. She said, afterward, that it was like writing with a ghost looking over one's shoulder.

"Then add, 'Mr. Brotherson has had a slight attack of fever, but he is getting well fast, and will soon--, Do I run on too quickly?"

"No, no, I can follow."

"But not without losing breath; eh, Doris?"

As he laughed, she smiled. There was a heroism in that smile, Oswald Brotherson, of which you knew nothing.

"You might speak a little more slowly," she admitted.

Quietly he repeated the last phrase. "'But he is getting well fast and will soon be ready to take up the management of the Works which was given him just before he was taken ill.' That will show her that I am working up," he brightly remarked as Doris carefully penned the last word. "Of myself you need say nothing more, unless--" he paused and his face took on a wistful look which Doris dared not meet; "unless--but no, no, she must think it has been only a pa.s.sing indisposition. If she knew I had been really ill, she would suffer, and perhaps act imprudently or suffer and not dare to act at all, which might be sadder for her still.

Leave it where it is and begin about yourself. Write a good deal about yourself, so that she will see that you are not worried and that all is well with us here. Cannot you do that without a.s.sistance? Surely you can tell her about that last piece of embroidery you showed me. She will be glad to hear--why, Doris!"

"Oh, Mr. Brotherson," the poor child burst out, "you must let me cry!

I'm so glad to see you better and interested in all sorts of things.

These are not tears of grief. I--I--but I'm forgetting what the doctor told me. You are growing excited, and I was to see that you were calm, always calm. I will take my desk away. I will write the rest in the other room, while you look at the magazines."

"But bring your letter back for me to seal. I want to see it in its envelope. Oh, Doris, you are a good little girl!"

She shook her head, and hastened to hide herself from him in the other room; and it was a long time before she came back with the letter folded and in its envelope. When she did, her face was composed and her manner natural. She had quite made up her mind what her duty was and how she was going to perform it.

"Here is the letter," said she, laying it in his outstretched hand. Then she turned her back. She knew, with a woman's unerring instinct why he wished to handle it before it went. She felt that kiss he folded away in it, in every fibre of her aroused and sympathetic heart, but the hardest part of the ordeal was over and her eyes beamed softly when she turned again to take it from his hand and affix the stamp.

"You will mail it yourself?" he asked. "I should like to have you put it into the box with your own hand."

"I will put it in to-night, after supper," she promised him.

His smile of contentment a.s.sured her that this trial of her courage and self-control was not without one blessed result. He would rest for several days in the pleasure of what he had done or thought he had done.

She need not cringe before that image of Dread for two, three days at least. Meanwhile, he would grow strong in body, and she, perhaps, in spirit. Only one precaution she must take. No hint of Mr. Challoner's presence in town must reach him. He must be guarded from a knowledge of that fact as certainly as from the more serious one which lay behind it.

XXVIII. I HOPE NEVER TO SEE THAT MAN

That this would be a difficult thing to do, Doris was soon to realise.

Mr. Challoner continued to pa.s.s the house twice a day and the time finally came when he ventured up the walk.

Doris was in the window and saw him coming. She slipped softly out and intercepted him before he had stepped upon the porch. She had caught up her hat as she pa.s.sed through the hall, and was fitting it to her head as he looked up and saw her.

"Miss Scott?" he asked.

"Yes, Mr. Challoner."