"Certainly. I told you I should. It was the only thing to do."

Mary Coombe's rage flickered and sank before the quiet force in the girl's face and voice. With all the will in the world she was too weak to oppose this new strength in Esther. And before her mortified pride could frame a retort, the girl had left the room.

It was of this quiet exit of Esther's that Mary was thinking as she sewed on the autograph quilt. Better than anything else it typified the change in the girl. It meant decision, and decision meant action. Mary shrugged her shoulders and frowned over the quilt. Yes, undoubtedly, Esther was getting troublesome. It might be well if she were married.

CHAPTER XX

Meanwhile, unconscious of her step-mother's troubled musings, Esther was loitering delightfully on her way from school. Aunt Amy, who never looked at a clock, but who always knew the time by what Jane called "magic," was beginning to wonder what had kept her. Strain her eyes as she would, there was no glint of a blue dress upon the long straight road, and Dr. Callandar, who in pa.s.sing had stopped by the gate, declared that he had noticed a similar absence of that delectable colour between the cross roads and the school house.

"I thought that I might meet her," he confessed ingenuously, "but when she was not in sight, I concluded that I was too late. Some of those angel children have probably had to be kept in. Could you make use of me instead? I run errands very nicely."

"Oh, it isn't an errand." Aunt Amy smiled, for she liked Dr. Callandar and was always as simple as a child with him. His easy, courteous manner, which was the same to her as to every one else, helped her to be at once more like other people and more like herself. "It's a letter. I wanted Esther to read it to me. Of course I can read myself," as she saw his look of surprise, "but sometimes I do not read exactly what is written. My imagination bothers me. Do you ever have any trouble with your imagination, Doctor?"

"I have known it to play me tricks."

"But you can read a letter just as it's written, can't you?"

"Yes. I can do that."

"Then your imagination cannot be as large as mine. Mine is very large.

It interferes with everything, even letters. When I read a letter myself I sometimes read things which aren't there. At least," with a faint show of doubt, "people say they aren't there."

"In other words," said Callandar, "you read between the lines."

Aunt Amy's plain face brightened. It was so seldom that any one understood.

"Yes, that's it! You won't laugh at me when I tell you that everything, letters, handkerchiefs, dresses and everything belonging to people have a feeling in them--something that tells secrets? I can't quite explain."

"I have heard very sensitive people express some such idea. It sounds very fascinating. I should like very much to hear about it."

"Would you? You are sure you won't think me queer? My niece, Mary Coombe, does not like me to tell people about it. She has no imagination herself, none at all. She says it is all nonsense. But I think,"

shrewdly, "that she would like to know some of the things that I know.

Won't you come in, Doctor? Come in and sit under the tree where it is cooler."

The doctor's hesitation was but momentary. He was keenly interested. And at the back of his mind was the thought that Esther must certainly be along presently. Fate had not favoured him of late. He had not seen her for five days. It is foolish to leave meetings to fate anyway. Then, if another reason were needed it was probable that if he stayed he would meet Esther's mother. He was beginning to feel quite curious about Mrs. Coombe.

"Thanks. I think I will come in. All the trees in Coombe are cool, but your elm is the coolest of them all. Let me arrange this cushion for you. Is that right?"

He settled Aunt Amy comfortably upon the least sloping portion of the old circular bench and, not wishing to trust it with his own weight, sat down upon the gra.s.s at her feet.

"Now," he said cheerfully, "let us have a regular psychic research meeting. Tell me all about it."

"What's that?" suspiciously.

"Psychic research? Oh, just finding out all about the queer things that happen to people."

"Do queer things happen to other people besides me?"

"Why, of course! Queer things happen to everybody."

Aunt Amy seemed glad to know this.

"They never talk about them," she said wistfully. "But, then, neither do I. Except to you. What was it you wanted me to tell you?"

"Tell me what you mean when you say that you read in a letter what is not written there. You see I haven't much imagination myself and I don't understand it."

"Neither do I," naively. "But it seems to be like this--take this letter, for instance, when I found it in--well, it doesn't matter where I found it--but as soon as I picked it up, I knew that it was a love letter. I felt it. It is an old letter, I think. And some one has been angry with it. See, it is all crumpled. But it is a real love letter.

All the love is there yet. When I took it in my hands it all came out to me, sweet and strong. Like--like the scent of something keen, fragrant, on a swift wind. I can't explain it!"

"You explain it very beautifully," gravely. "I can quite understand that love might be like that."

"Can you?" with a pleased smile. "And can you understand how I feel it?

I can feel things in people, too. Love and hate and envy and all kinds of things. I never say so. I used to, but people did not like it. They always looked queer, or got angry. They seemed to think I had no right to see inside of them. So I soon pretended not to see anything. But a letter doesn't mind. This one," swinging the crumpled paper swiftly close to his face, "is glad I found it. Can't you feel it yourself?"

Callandar shook his head. "I am far too dull and commonplace for that!"

He smiled. "But I have no doubt it is all there, just as you say. Why not? Our knowledge of such things is in its infancy."

Aunt Amy stroked the paper with gentle fingers. "Yes, yes, it is all there," she murmured. "But I may have read it wrongly for all that. The written words I mean. I can't help reading what I feel. Once I felt a letter that was full of hate, dreadful! And I read quite shocking things in it. But when Esther read it, it was just a polite note, beginning 'Dear' and ending 'Your affectionate friend."'

"It might have been very hateful for all that."

"But no one knew it. That is why I am so anxious always to know if I read things right. Will you read this letter to me?"

"With pleasure--if I may."

"Oh, it doesn't belong to any one. It isn't Esther's because it's too old and it begins 'Dearest wife' and it isn't Mary's because it isn't Doctor Coombe's writing; so you see I thought it might not hurt anybody if I pretended it was mine."

"No," gently, "I do not see why it would."

"I never had a love letter of my own. Or if I did I cannot find it. The only thing I ever had with love in it was the ruby ring, and that--"

She checked herself suddenly; her small face freezing into such a mask of tragedy that Callandar was alarmed. But to his quick "What is it?"

she returned no answer and the expression pa.s.sed as quickly as it had come.

When he held out his hand for the letter, she seemed to have forgotten it. Her gaze had again grown restless and vague. It would do no good to question further, the rare hour of confession was past.

"You both look very comfortable, I'm sure!" It was Esther's laughing voice. She had come so quietly that neither of them had heard her. Aunt Amy's vagueness vanished in a pleased smile and Callandar, as he sprang to open the gate, forgot all about the unread letter and everything else, save that she had come.

Why was it, he wondered, that he could never recall her, save in dulled tints. Lovely as she had lingered in his memory, her living beauty was so much lovelier. There, in the shade of the elm, her blue dress flecked with gold, the warm pallor of heat upon her face, her hair lying close and heavy, a little pulse beating where the low collar softly disclosed the slim roundness of her white throat, she was not only beautiful, she was Beauty. She was not only Beauty, she was Herself, the one woman in the world! He acknowledged it now, with all humility.

The girl greeted him quietly. She did not, as was her custom, look up at him with that sweet widening of the eyes which he had learned to hunger for. The truth was that she, too, was moving slowly toward her awakening. The days in which they had not met had been full of thoughts of him. Dreams had come to her, vague, delicious bits of fancy which had whispered in her ear and pa.s.sed, leaving a new softness in her eyes, a new flush upon her cheek. There was about her a dewy freshness which seemed to brighten up the world. Vaguely her girl friends wondered what had "come over" Esther Coombe, and at home Aunt Amy's pathetic eyes followed her, dim with a half-memory of long past joy. But it was Mrs.

Sykes' Ann who best expressed the change in her beauty when, one day, she said to Bubble: "Esther Coombe looks like she was all lighted up inside and when she walks you'd think the wind was blowing her."

So it happened that while yesterday she might still have smiled into the doctor's eyes as she greeted him, to-day she shook hands without looking at his face at all.