Soon the girls and their beaux came trooping in to join their elders on the way to the supper-room.  Lucy hung back until the last (she had not liked the doctor’s interference), Jane’s long red cloak draped from her shoulders, the hood hanging down her back, her cheeks radiant, her beautiful blond hair ruffled with the night wind, an aureole of gold framing her face.  Bart followed close behind, a pleased, almost triumphant smile playing about his lips.

He had carried his point.  The cluster of blossoms which had rested upon Lucy’s bosom was pinned to the lapel of his coat.

CHAPTER III

LITTLE TOD FOGARTY

With the warmth of Jane’s parting grasp lingering in his own Doctor John untied the mare, sprang into his gig, and was soon clear of the village and speeding along the causeway that stretched across the salt marshes leading past his own home to the inner beach beyond.  As he drove slowly through his own gate, so as to make as little noise as possible, the cottage, blanketed under its clinging vines, seemed in the soft light of the low-lying moon to be fast asleep.  Only one eye was open; this was the window of his office, through which streamed the glow of a lamp, its light falling on the gravel path and lilac bushes beyond.

Rex gave a bark of welcome and raced beside the wheels.

“Keep still, old dog!  Down, Rex!  Been lonely, old fellow?”

The dog in answer leaped in the air as his master drew rein, and with eager springs tried to reach his hands, barking all the while in short and joyful yelps.

Doctor John threw the lines across the dash-board, jumped from the gig, and pushing open the hall door—­it was never locked—­stepped quickly into his office, and turning up the lamp, threw himself into a chair at his desk.  The sorrel made no attempt to go to the stable—­both horse and man were accustomed to delays—­sometimes of long hours and sometimes of whole nights.

The appointments and fittings of the office—­old-fashioned and practical as they were—­reflected in a marked degree the aims and tastes of the occupant.  While low bookcases stood against the walls surmounted by rows of test-tubes, mortars and pestles, cases of instruments, and a line of bottles labelled with names of various mixtures (in those days doctors were chemists as well as physicians), there could also be found a bust of the young Augustus; one or two lithographs of Heidelberg, where he had studied; and some line engravings in black frames—­one a view of Oxford with the Thames wandering by, another a portrait of the Duke of Wellington, and still another of Nell Gwynn.  Scattered about the room were easy-chairs and small tables piled high with books, a copy of Tacitus and an early edition of Milton being among them, while under the wide, low window stood a narrow bench crowded with flowering plants in earthen pots, the remnants of the winter’s bloom.  There were also souvenirs of his earlier student life—­a life which few of his friends in Warehold, except Jane Cobden, knew or cared anything about—­including a pair of crossed foils and two boxing-gloves; these last hung over a portrait of Macaulay.