Mrs. Cavendish had seen the change in her son’s demeanor and had watched him closely through his varying moods, but though she divined their cause she had not sought to probe his secret.

His greatest comfort was in his visits to Martha.  He always dropped in to see her when he made his rounds in the neighborhood; sometimes every day, sometimes once a week, depending on his patients and their condition—­visits which were always prolonged when a letter came from either of the girls, for at first Lucy wrote to the old nurse as often as did Jane.  Apart from this the doctor loved the patient caretaker, both for her loyalty and for her gentleness.  And she loved him in return; clinging to him as an older woman clings to a strong man, following his advice (he never gave orders) to the minutest detail when something in the management or care of house or grounds exceeded her grasp.  Consulting him, too, and this at Jane’s special request —­regarding any financial complications which needed prompt attention, and which, but for his services, might have required Jane’s immediate return to disentangle.  She loved, too, to talk of Lucy and of Miss Jane’s goodness to her bairn, saying she had been both a sister and a mother to her, to which the doctor would invariably add some tribute of his own which only bound the friendship the closer.

His main relief, however, lay in his work, and in this he became each day more engrossed.  He seemed never to be out of his gig unless at the bedside of some patient.  So long and wearing had the routes become—­often beyond Barnegat and as far as Westfield —­that the sorrel gave out, and he was obliged to add another horse to his stable.  His patients saw the weary look in his eyes—­as of one who had often looked on sorrow—­and thought it was the hard work and anxiety over them that had caused it.  But the old nurse knew better.

“His heart’s breakin’ for love of her,” she would say to Meg, looking down into his sleepy eyes—­she cuddled him more than ever these days—­“and I don’t wonder.  God knows how it’ll all end.”

Jane wrote to him but seldom; only half a dozen letters in all during the first year of her absence among them one to tell him of their safe arrival, another to thank him for his kindness to Martha, and a third to acknowledge the receipt of a letter of introduction to a student friend of his who was now a prominent physician in Paris, and who might be useful in case either of them fell ill.  He had written to his friend at the same time, giving the address of the two girls, but the physician had answered that he had called at the street and number, but no one knew of them.  The doctor reported this to Jane in his next letter, asking her to write to his friend so that he might know of their whereabouts should they need his services, for which Jane, in a subsequent letter, thanked him, but made no mention of sending to his friend should occasion require.  These subsequent letters said very little about their plans and carefully avoided all reference to their daily life or to Lucy’s advancement in her studies, and never once set any time for their coming home.  He wondered at her neglect of him, and when no answer came to his continued letters, except at long intervals, he could contain himself no longer, and laid the whole matter before Martha.