What the place lacked was the touch of a woman’s hand in vase, flower, or ornament—­a touch that his mother, for reasons of her own, never gave and which no other woman had yet dared suggest.

For an instant the doctor sat with his elbows on the desk in deep thought, the light illuminating his calm, finely chiselled features and hands—­those thin, sure hands which could guide a knife within a hair’s breadth of instant death—­and leaning forward, with an indrawn sigh examined some letters lying under his eye.  Then, as if suddenly remembering, he glanced at the office slate, his face lighting up as he found it bare of any entry except the date.

Rex had been watching his master with ears cocked, and was now on his haunches, cuddling close, his nose resting on the doctor’s knee.  Doctor John laid his hand on the dog’s head and smoothing the long, silky ears, said with a sigh of relief, as he settled himself in his chair: 

“Little Tod must be better, Rex, and we are going to have a quiet night.”

The anxiety over his patients relieved, his thoughts reverted to Jane and their talk.  He remembered the tone of her voice and the quick way in which she had warded off his tribute to her goodness; he recalled her anxiety over Lucy; he looked again into the deep, trusting eyes that gazed into his as she appealed to him for assistance; he caught once more the poise of the head as she listened to his account of little Tod Fogarty’s illness and heard her quick offer to help, and felt for the second time her instant tenderness and sympathy, never withheld from the sick and suffering, and always so generous and spontaneous.

A certain feeling of thankfulness welled up in his heart.  Perhaps she had at last begun to depend upon him—­a dependence which, with a woman such as Jane, must, he felt sure, eventually end in love.

With these thoughts filling his mind, he settled deeper in his chair.  These were the times in which he loved to think of her—­when, with pipe in mouth, he could sit alone by his fire and build castles in the coals, every rosy mountain-top aglow with the love he bore her; with no watchful mother’s face trying to fathom his thoughts; only his faithful dog stretched at his feet.

Picking up his brierwood, lying on a pile of books on his desk, and within reach of his hand, he started to fill the bowl, when a scrap of paper covered with a scrawl written in pencil came into view.  He turned it to the light and sprang to his feet.

“Tod worse,” he said to himself.  “I wonder how long this has been here.”

The dog was now beside him looking up into the doctor’s eyes.  It was not the first time that he had seen his master’s face grow suddenly serious as he had read the tell-tale slate or had opened some note awaiting his arrival.

Doctor John lowered the lamp, stepped noiselessly to the foot of the winding stairs that led to the sleeping rooms above—­the dog close at his heels, watching his every movement—­and called gently: