It was as odd a household this as well might be.  Alec spent some of his time offering rough ministrations to his lame brother and asthmatic visitor, but more often left them to the sad but conscientious care of Mrs. Martha, preferring to exercise his brother’s horses; and he scoured the country, escaping from social overtures he did not feel prepared to meet.  To all three men Mrs. Martha was at this time an object of silent wonder.  Before the Adventist disturbance she had appeared a very commonplace person; now, as they saw her going about her daily work, grim in her complete reserve, questions which could hardly be put into words arose in their minds concerning her.  She suggested to them such pictorial ideas as one gleans in childhood about the end of the world, and this quite without any effort on their part, but just because she had clothed herself to their eyes in such ideas.  Bates, who had exact opinions on all points of theology, tackled her upon what he termed “her errors”; but, perhaps because he had little breath to give to the cause, the other two inmates of the house could not learn that he had gained any influence over her or any additional information as to her state of mind.

Bates himself was so incongruous an element in Principal Trenholme’s house that it became evident he could not be induced to remain there long.  Sufficiently intelligent to appreciate thoroughly any tokens of ease or education, he was too proud not to resent them involuntarily as implying inferiority on his own part.  He had, to a certain degree, fine perception of what good manners involved, but he was not sufficiently simple to act without self-conscious awkwardness when he supposed any deviation from his ordinary habits to be called for.  Had he not been miserable in mind and body he might have taken more kindly to carpets and china; but as it was, he longed, as a homesick man for home, for bare floors and the unceremoniousness that comes with tin mugs and a scarcity of plates.

For home as it existed for him—­the desolate lake and hills, the childish crone and rude hearth—­for these he did not long.  It was his home, that place; for into it—­into the splashing lake and lonely woods, into the contour of the hills, and into the very logs of which the house was built—­he had put as much of himself as can be absorbed by outside things; but just because to return there would be to return to his mind’s external habitat, he could not now take comfort in returning.  All the multiform solace it might have yielded him had been blasted by the girl from the hotel, who had visited him in secret.  Before he had seen Sissy again his one constant longing had been to get done with necessary business, financial and medical, and go back to his place, where sorrow and he could dwell at peace together.  He would still go, for he cherished one of those nervous ideas common with sick men, that he could breathe there and nowhere else; but he hated the place that was now rife with memories far more unrestful and galling than memories of the dead can ever be.