"But I'm in the regular habit of taking care of her," protested Mr. Opp.

"This is just a temporary excitement for the time being that won't ever, probably, occur again. Why, she's been improving all winter; I've learnt her to read and write a little, and to pick out a number of cities on the geographical atlas."

"All wrong," exclaimed the doctor; "mistaken kindness. She can never be any better, but she may be a great deal worse. Her mind should never be stimulated or excited in any way. Here, of course, we understand all these things and treat the patient accordingly."

"Then I must just go back to treating her like a child again?" asked Mr.

Opp, "not endeavoring to improve her intellect, or help her grow up in any way?"

The doctor laid a kindly hand on his shoulder.

"You leave her to us," he said. "The State provides this excellent inst.i.tution for just such cases as hers. You do yourself and your family, if you have one, an injustice by keeping her at home. Let her stay here for six months or so, and you will see what a relief it will be."

Mr. Opp sat with his elbow on the desk and his head propped in his hand, and stared miserably at the floor. He had not had his clothes off for two nights, and he had scarcely taken time from his search to eat anything. His face looked old and wizened and haunted from the strain.

Yet here and now he was called upon to make his great decision. On the one hand lay the old, helpless life with Kippy, and on the other a future of dazzling possibility with Guinevere. All of his submerged self suddenly rose and demanded happiness. He was ready to s.n.a.t.c.h it, at any cost, regardless of everything and everybody--of Kippy; of Guinevere, who, he knew, did not love him, but would keep her promise; of Hinton, whose secret he had long ago guessed. And, as a running accompaniment to his thoughts, was the quiet, professional voice of the doctor urging him to the course that his heart prompted. For a moment the personal forces involved trembled in equilibrium.

After a long time he unknotted his fingers, and drew his handkerchief across his brow.

"I guess I'll go up and see her now," he said, with the gasping breath of a man who has been under water.

In vain the doctor protested. Mr. Opp was determined.

As the door to the long ward was being unlocked, he leaned for a moment dizzily against the wall.

"You'd better let me give you a swallow of whisky," suggested the doctor, who had noted his exhaustion.

Mr. Opp raised his hand deprecatingly, with a touch of his old professional pride. "I don't know as I've had occasion to mention," he said, "that I am the editor and sole proprietor of 'The Opp Eagle'; and that bird," he added, with a forced smile, "is, as everybody knows, a complete teetotaler."

At the end of the crowded ward, with her face to the wall, was a slight, familiar figure. Mr. Opp started forward; then he turned fiercely upon the attendant.

"Her hands are tied! Who dared to tie her up like that?"

"It's just a soft handkerchief," replied the matronly woman, rea.s.suringly. "We were afraid she would pull her hair out. She wants its fixed a certain way; but she's afraid for any of us to touch her. She has been crying about it ever since she came."

In an instant Mr. Opp was on his knees beside her. "Kippy, Kippy darling, here's brother D.; he'll fix it for you! You want it parted on the side, don't you, tied with a bow, and all the rest hanging down?

Don't cry so, Kippy. I'm here now; brother D.'ll take care of you."

She flung her loosened arms around him and clung to him in a pa.s.sion of relief. Her sobs shook them both, and his face and neck were wet with her tears.

As soon as they could get her sufficiently quiet, they took her into her little bedroom.

"You let the lady get you ready," urged Mr. Opp, still holding her hand, "and I'll take you back home, and Aunt Tish will have a nice, hot supper all waiting for us."

But she would let n.o.body else touch her, and even then she broke forth into piteous sobs and protests. Once she pushed him from her and looked about wildly. "No, no," she cried, "I mustn't go; I am crazy!" But he told her about the three little kittens that had been born under the kitchen steps, and in an instant she was all a-tremble with eagerness to go home to see them.

An hour later, Mr. Opp and his charge sat on the river-bank and waited for the little launch that was to take them back to the Cove. A curious crowd had gathered at a short distance, for their story had gone the rounds.

Mr. Opp sat under the fire of curious glances, gazing straight in front of him, and only his flushed face showed what he was suffering. Miss Kippy, in her strange clothes and with her pale hair flying about her shoulders, sat close by him, her hand in his.

"D.," she said once in a high, insistent voice, "when will I be grown up enough to marry Mr. Hinton?"

Mr. Opp for a moment forgot the crowd. "Kippy," he said with all the gentle earnestness that was in him, "you ain't never going to grow up at all. You are just always going to be brother D.'s little girl. You see, Mr. Hinton's too old for you, just like--" he paused, then finished it bravely--"just like I am too old for Miss Guin-never. I wouldn't be surprised if they got married with each other some day. You and me will just have to take care of each other."

She looked at him with the quick suspicion of the insane, but he was ready for her with a smile.

"Oh, D.," she cried, in a sudden rapture, "we are glad, ain't we?"

XVII

For the next four weeks there was no issue of "The Opp Eagle." When it did make its appearance, it contained the following editorial:

Ye editor has for several weeks been the victim of the La Grip which eventuated into a rising in our left ear. Although we are still in severe and continuous pain, we know that behind the clouds of suffering the blue sky of health is still shining, and that a brighter day is coming, as it were.

The night of Mr. Opp's return from Coreyville, he had written a long letter to Guinevere Gusty telling her of his final decision in regard to Kippy, and releasing her from her promise. This having been accomplished, he ceased to fight against the cold and exhaustion, and went to bed with a hard chill.

Aunt Tish, all contrition for the disasters she thought she had brought upon the household, served him night and day, and even Miss Kippy, moved by the unusual sight of her brother in bed, made futile efforts to a.s.sist in the nursing.

When at last he was able to crawl back to the office, he found startling changes had taken place in the Cove. The prompt payment of the oil stock-holders by the Union Syndicate had brought about such a condition of prosperity and general satisfaction as had never before been known.

The civic spirit planted and carefully nourished by "The Opp Eagle"

burst into bloom under this sudden and unexpected warmth. Committees, formed the year before, were called upon for reports, and gratifying results were obtained. The Cove awoke to the fact that it had lamp-posts, and side-walks and a post-office, with a possibility, looming large, of a court house.

Nor did this ambition for improvement stop short with the town: it extended to individuals. Jimmy Fallows was going to build a new hotel; Mr. Tucker was going to convert his hotel into a handsome private residence, for which Mrs. Gusty had been asked to select the wall-paper; Mat Lucas was already planning to build a large store on Main Street, and had engaged Mr. Gallop to take charge of the dry-goods department.

The one person upon whom prosperity had apparently had a blighting effect was Miss Jim Fenton. Soon after the receipt of her check, she had appeared in the Cove in a plain, black tailor suit, and a small, severe felt hat innocent of adornment. The French-heeled slippers had been replaced by heavy walking shoes, and the lace scarf was discarded for a stiff linen collar.

But the state of Miss Jim's mind was not to be judged by the somberness of her raiment. The novelty of selecting her own clothes, of consulting her own taste, of being rid of the entangling dangers of lace ruffles and flying furbelows, to say nothing of unwelcome suitors, gave her a sense of exhilaration and independence which she had not enjoyed for years.

In the midst of all these tangible evidences of success, Mr. Opp found himself indulging in a hand-to-hand struggle with failure. As a hunter aims at a point well in advance of the flying bird, so he had aimed at possibilities ahead of the facts, and when events took an unexpected turn, he was left stranded, his ammunition gone, his judgment questioned, and his hands empty. He had been conducting his affairs not on the basis of his present income, but in reference to the large sums which he confidently believed would accrue from the oil-wells.

The circulation of "The Opp Eagle" was increasing steadily, but the growing bird must be fed, and the editor, struggling to meet daily pressing obligations, was in no condition to furnish the steady demand for copy.

All unnecessary diversions were ruthlessly foregone. He resigned with a pang the leadership of the Union Orchestra, he gave up his membership with the Odd Fellows. Even his more important duties, as president of the Town Improvement League, and director in the bank, were relinquished. For, in addition to his editorials, he had undertaken to augment his slender income by selling on subscription the "Encyclopedia of Wonder, Beauty, and Wisdom."

It was at this low ebb of Mr. Opp's fortunes that Willard Hinton returned to the Cove. He was still pale from his long confinement, but there was an unusual touch of animation about him, the half-surprised interest of one who has struck bottom, and found it not so bad as he had expected.

One dark afternoon in November he made his way over to the office of "The Opp Eagle," and stood irresolute in the door.

"That you, Mr. Opp? Or is it Nick?" He blinked uncertainly.

"Why, it is me," said Mr. Opp. "Come right in. I've been so occupied with engagements that I haven't scarcely had occasion to see anything of you since you come back. You are getting improved all the time, ain't you? I thought I saw you writing on a type-writer when I pa.s.sed this morning."

"Yes," said Hinton; "it's a little machine I got before I came down, with raised letters on the keyboard. If I progress at the rapid pace I have started, I'll be an expert before long. Mrs. Gusty was able to read five words out of ten this morning!"

"Hope you'll do us an article or two," said Mr. Opp. "I don't mind telling you that things has been what you might name as pressing ever since that trouble about the oil-wells. I'm not regretting any step that I taken, and I am endeavoring not to harbor any feelings against those that went on after I give my word it wasn't a fair transaction. But if what that man Clark said is true, Mr. Hinton, the Union Syndicate will never open up another well in this community."

"Your conscience proved rather an expensive luxury that time, didn't it, Mr. Opp?" asked Hinton, who had heard as many versions of the affair as there were citizens in the Cove.

Mr. Opp shrugged his shoulders, and pursed his lips. "It's a matter that I cannot yet bring myself to talk about. After a whole year and more of a.s.sociating with me in business and social ways, to think they wouldn't be willing to take my word for what I said."