Yet Mrs. Starbottle was very patient and confident; her very confidence shook his faith in his own judgment.  When her strength was equal to the exertion, she was propped up in her chair by the window, where she could see the school and the entrance to the hotel.  In the intervals she would elaborate pleasant plans for the future, and would sketch a country home.  She had taken a strange fancy, as it seemed to Prince, to the present location; but it was notable that the future, always thus outlined, was one of quiet and repose.  She believed she would get well soon; in fact, she thought she was now much better than she had been, but it might be long before she should be quite strong again.  She would whisper on in this way until Jack would dash madly down into the barroom, order liquors that he did not drink, light cigars that he did not smoke, talk with men that he did not listen to, and behave generally as our stronger sex is apt to do in periods of delicate trials and perplexity.

The day closed with a clouded sky and a bitter, searching wind.  With the night fell a few wandering flakes of snow.  She was still content and hopeful; and, as Jack wheeled her from the window to the fire, she explained to him how that, as the school term was drawing near its close, Carry was probably kept closely at her lessons during the day, and could only leave the school at night.  So she sat up the greater part of the evening, and combed her silken hair, and as far as her strength would allow, made an undress toilet to receive her guest.  “We must not frighten the child, Jack,” she said apologetically, and with something of her old coquetry.

It was with a feeling of relief that, at ten o’clock, Jack received a message from the landlord, saying that the doctor would like to see him for a moment downstairs.  As Jack entered the grim, dimly lighted parlor, he observed the hooded figure of a woman near the fire.  He was about to withdraw again when a voice that he remembered very pleasantly said: 

“Oh, it’s all right!  I’m the doctor.”

The hood was thrown back, and Prince saw the shining black hair and black, audacious eyes of Kate Van Corlear.

“Don’t ask any questions.  I’m the doctor, and there’s my prescription,” and she pointed to the half-frightened, half-sobbing Carry in the corner—­“to be taken at once.”

“Then Mrs. Tretherick has given her permission?”

“Not much, if I know the sentiments of that lady,” replied Kate saucily.

“Then how did you get away?” asked Prince gravely.

“By the window.”

When Mr. Prince had left Carry in the arms of her stepmother, he returned to the parlor.

“Well?” demanded Kate.

“She will stay—­you will, I hope, also—­tonight.”

“As I shall not be eighteen, and my own mistress on the twentieth, and as I haven’t a sick stepmother, I won’t.”

“Then you will give me the pleasure of seeing you safely through the window again?”