"You mean without you, dearest?"

"Yes."

"That may be as you say. Would you prefer to go with us?"

She drew a long breath, slowly, like an indrawn sigh, and something trembled to pa.s.s her heart, but suddenly the old habit of reserve sealed her lips and she remained silent.

"What do you say?" he urged.

"Tell me first--do you want me to go?"

He was silent, and they sat waiting for each other. Then he said, "I do want you to go--and yet I don't want you to go--yet. Sometime, of course, we must go where I may find wider scope for my activities." He felt her quiver of anxiety. "Not until you are quite ready yourself, dear, always remember that." Still she was silent, and he continued: "I can't say that I'm quite ready myself. I would prefer one more year here, but Hoyle must be removed without delay. We may have waited too long as it is. Will your mother consent? She must, if she cares to see him live."

"Oh, David! Go, go. Take him and go to-morrow. Leave me here and go--but--come back to me, David, soon--very soon. I--I shall need you, I-- Can you leave Hoyle there and come back, David? Or must you bide there, too?" Suddenly she bowed her face in her hands. "Oh, I'm so wicked and selfish to think of leaving him there without you or me or mother--one. David, what can we do? He might die there, and you--you must come back for the winter; what would save him, might kill you. Oh, David! Take me with you, and leave me there with him, and you come back.

Doctor Hoyle will take care of him--of us--once we are there."

"Now, now, now! hold your dear heart in peace. Why, I'm well. To stay another winter would only be to establish myself in a more rugged condition of body--not that I must do so. We'll talk with your mother to-morrow. It may be hard to persuade her."

But he found the mother most reasonable and practical. He even tried to abate her perfect trust in him and his ability to bring the child back to her quite well and strong.

"This isn't a trouble that is ever really cured, you know. When taken young enough, it may be helped, and I've known people who have lived long and useful lives in spite of it. That's all we may hope for."

"Waal, I 'low ye can't git him no younger'n he be now, an' he's that peart, I reckon he's worth hit--leastways to we-uns."

"Of course he's worth it."

"You are right good to keer fer him like you have. I'd do a heap fer you ef I could. All I have is jest this here farm, an' hit's fer you an'

Ca.s.s. On'y ef ye'd 'low me an' leetle Hoyle to bide on here whilst we live--"

David was touched. "Do you realize I've found here the two greatest things in the world, love and health? All I want is for you to know and remember that if I can't succeed in doing all I would like for the boy, at least I tried my very best. I may not succeed, you know, but this is the only thing to do now--the only thing."

David parted from his young wife, leaving her standing in the door of their cabin, clad in her white homespun frock, smiling, yet tearful and pale. He was to walk down to the Fall Place, where Jerry Carew waited with the wagon in which he had arrived, and where his baggage had been brought the day before. When he came to the steepest part of the descent, he looked back and saw Ca.s.sandra still standing as if in a trance, gazing after him. He felt his heart lean towards her, and, turning sharply, walked swiftly to her and took her once more in his arms and looked down into those deep springs--her sweet gray eyes. Thus for a long moment he held her to his heart with never a word. Then she entered the little home, and he walked away, looking back no more.

CHAPTER XXIII

IN WHICH DOCTOR HOYLE SPEAKS HIS MIND

Doctor Hoyle sat in his office staring straight before him, not as if he were looking at David Thryng, who sat in range of his vision, but as if seeing beyond him into some other time and place. David had been speaking, but now they both were silent, and the young man wondered if his old friend had really been paying attention to his words or not.

"Well, Doctor," he said at last.

"Well, David."

"You don't seem satisfied. Is it with my condition?"

"Your condition? No, no, no! It's not your condition. Yes, yes--fine, fine. I never saw such a marvellous change in my life, never!"

David smiled over the old doctor's stammer of enthusiasm. It was as if his thoughts, fertile and vehement, and the feelings of his great, warm heart welled up within him, and, trying to burst forth all at once, tumbled over themselves, unable to secure words rapidly enough in which to give themselves utterance.

"Then why so silent and dubious?"

"Why--why--y--young man, I wasn't thinking anything about you just then." And again David laughed, while his wiry old friend jumped up and walked rapidly and restlessly about the small apartment and laughed in sympathy. "It's not--not--"

"I know." David grew instantly sober again. "Of course the little chap's case is serious--very--or I would not have brought him to you."

"Oh, no, no, I'm not thinking of Adam, bless you, no." The doctor always called his little namesake Adam. "I'm thinking of her--the little girl you left behind you. Yes--yes. Of her."

"She's not so little now, Doctor; she's tall--tall enough to be beautiful."

"I remember her,--slight--slight little creature, all eyes and hair, all soul and mind. Now what are you going to do with her, eh?"

"What is she going to do with me, rather! I'll go back to her as soon as I dare leave the boy."

"But, man alive! what--what are--you can't live down there all your days. It's to be life and work for you, sir, and what are you going to do with her, I say?"

"I'll bring her here with me. She'll come."

"Of course you'll bring her here with you, and you--you'll have plenty of friends. Maybe they'll appreciate her, and maybe they won't; maybe they won't, I say; Understand? And she'll c--come. Oh, yes, she'll come!

she'll do whatever you say, and presently she'll break her heart and die for you. She'll never say a word, but that's what she'll do."

"Why, Doctor!" cried David, appalled. "I love her as my own life--my very soul."

"Of--of course. That goes without saying. We all do, we men, but we--d.a.m.n it all! Do you suppose I've lived all these years and not seen?

Why--we think of ourselves first every time. D--don't we, though?

Rather!"

"But selfish as we are, we can love--a man can, if he sets himself to it honestly,--love a woman and make her happy, even without the appreciation of others, in spite of environment,--everything. It's the destiny of women to love us, thank G.o.d. She would have been doomed surely to die if she had married the one who wanted her first--or to live a life for her worse than death."

"Oh, Lord bless you, boy, yes. It's a woman's destiny. I'm an old fool.

There--there's my own little girl, she's m--married and gone--gone to live in England. They will do it--the women will. Come, we'll go see Adam."

The doctor sprang up, brushed his hand across his eyes, and caught up a battered silk hat. He turned it about and looked at it ruefully, with a quizzical smile playing about the corners of his eyes. "Remember that hat?" he asked.

"Well do I remember it. You've driven many a mile in many a rainstorm by my side under that hat! When you're done with it, leave it to me in your will. I have a fancy for it. Will you?"

"Here, take it--take it. I'm done with it. Mary scolds me every day about it. No p--peace in life because of it. Here's a new one I bought the other day--good one--good enough."

He lifted a box which had fallen from his cluttered office table, and took from it a new hat which had evidently not been unpacked before. He tried it on his head, turned it about and about, took it off and gazed at it within and without, then hastily tossed it aside and, s.n.a.t.c.hing his old one from David put it on his head, and they started off.

Hoyle had been placed in a small ward where were only two other little beds, both occupied, with one nurse to attend on the three patients. One of them had broken his leg and had to lie in a cast, and the other was convalescing from fever, but both were well enough to be companionable with the lonely little Southerner. Hoyle's face beamed upon David as he bent over him.

"I kin make pi'chers whilst I'm a-lyin' here," he cried ecstatically.

"That thar lady, she 'lows me to make 'em. She 'lows mine're good uns."

David glanced at the young woman indicated. She was pleasant-faced and rosy, and looked practical and good.