“You discourage me, sir.  And now to see Mr. Challoner.  Small comfort can I carry him.”

XXVII

THE IMAGE OF DREAD

In the comfortable little sitting-room of the Scott cottage Doris stood, looking eagerly from the window which gave upon the road.  Behind her on the other side of the room, could be seen through a partly opened door, a neatly spread bed, with a hand lying quietly on the patched coverlet.  It was a strong looking hand which, even when quiescent, conveyed the idea of purpose and vitality.  As Doris said, the fingers never curled up languidly, but always with the hint of a clench.  Several weeks had passed since the departure of Sweetwater and the invalid was fast gaining strength.  To-morrow, he would be up.

Was Doris thinking of him?  Undoubtedly, for her eyes often flashed his way; but her main attention was fixed upon the road, though no one was in sight at the moment.  Some one had passed for whose return she looked; some one whom, if she had been asked to describe, she would have called a tall, fine-looking man of middle age, of a cultivated appearance seldom seen in this small manufacturing town; seldom seen, possibly, in any town.  He had glanced up at the window as he went by, in a manner too marked not to excite her curiosity.  Would he look up again when he came back?  She was waiting there to see.  Why, she did not know.  She was not used to indulging in petty suppositions of this kind; her life was too busy, her anxieties too keen.  The great dread looming ever before her,—­the dread of that hour when she must speak,—­left her very little heart for anything dissociated with this coming event.  For a girl of seventeen she was unusually thoughtful.  Life had been hard in this little cottage since her mother died, or rather she had felt its responsibilities keenly.

Life itself could not be hard where Oswald Brotherson lived; neither to man, nor woman.  The cheer of some natures possesses a divine faculty.  If it can help no other way, it does so by the aid of its own light.  Such was the character of this man’s temperament.  The cottage was a happy place; only—­she never fathomed the depths of that only.  If in these days she essayed at times to do so, she gave full credit to the Dread which rose ever before her—­rose like a ghost!  She, Doris, led by inscrutable Fate, was waiting to hurt him who hurt nobody; whose mere presence was a blessing.

But her interest had been caught to-day, caught by this stranger, and when during her eager watch the small messenger from the Works came to the door with the usual daily supply of books and magazines for the patient, she stepped out on the porch to speak to him and to point out the gentleman who was now rapidly returning from his stroll up the road.

“Who is that, Johnny?” she asked.  “You know everybody who comes to town.  What is the name of the gentleman you see coming?”