AN ARRIVAL

With the departure of Jane and Lucy the old homestead took on that desolate, abandoned look which comes to most homes when all the life and joyousness have gone from them.  Weeds grew in the roadway between the lilacs, dandelions flaunted themselves over the grass-plots; the shutters of the porch side of the house were closed, and the main gate always thrown wide day and night in ungoverned welcome, was seldom opened except to a few intimate friends of the old nurse.

At first Pastor Dellenbaugh had been considerate enough to mount the long path to inquire for news of the travelers and to see how Martha was getting along, but after the receipt of the earlier letters from Jane telling of their safe arrival and their sojourn in a little village but a short distance out of Paris, convenient to the great city, even his visits ceased.  Captain Holt never darkened the door; nor did he ever willingly stop to talk to Martha when he met her on the road.  She felt the slight, and avoided him when she could.  This resulted in their seldom speaking to each other, and then only in the most casual way.  She fancied he might think she wanted news of Bart, and so gave him no opportunity to discuss him or his whereabouts; but she was mistaken.  The captain never mentioned his name to friend or stranger.  To him the boy was dead for all time.  Nor had anyone of his companions heard from him since that stormy night on the beach.

Doctor John’s struggle had lasted for months, but he had come through it chastened and determined.  For the first few days he went about his work as one in a dream, his mind on the woman he loved, his hand mechanically doing its duty.  Jane had so woven herself into his life that her sudden departure had been like the upwrenching of a plant, tearing out the fibres twisted about his heart, cutting off all his sustenance and strength.  The inconsistencies of her conduct especially troubled him.  If she loved him—­and she had told him that she did, and with their cheeks touching—­how could she leave him in order to indulge a mere whim of her sister’s?  And if she loved him well enough to tell him so, why had she refused to plight him her troth?  Such a course was unnatural, and out of his own and everyone else’s experience.  Women who loved men with a great, strong, healthy love, the love he could give her, and the love he knew she could give him, never permitted such trifles to come between them and their life’s happiness.  What, he asked himself a thousand times, had brought this change?

As the months went by these doubts and speculations one by one passed out of his mind, and only the image of the woman he adored, with all her qualities—­loyalty to her trust, tenderness over Lucy and unquestioned love for himself—­rose clear.  No, he would believe in her to the end!  She was still all he had in life.  If she would not be his wife she should be his friend.  That happiness was worth all else to him in the world.  His was not to criticise, but to help.  Help as she wanted it; preserving her standard of personal honor, her devotion to her ideals, her loyalty, her blind obedience to her trust.