In the morning Dr. Mulbridge drove back to Corbitant, and in the evening Libby came over from New Leyden with Maynard, in a hired wagon. He was a day later than his wife had computed, but as she appeared to have reflected, she had left the intervening Sunday out of her calculation; this was one of the few things she taxed herself to say. For the rest, she seemed to be hoarding her strength against his coming.
Grace met him at a little distance from the house, whither she had walked with Bella, for a breath of the fresh air after her long day in the sick-room, and did not find him the boisterous and jovial Hoosier she had imagined him. It was, in fact, hardly the moment for the expression of Western humor. He arrived a sleep-broken, travel-creased figure, with more than the Western man's usual indifference to dress; with sad, dull eyes, and an untrimmed beard that hung in points and tags, and thinly hid the corners of a large mouth. He took her hand laxly in his, and bowing over her from his lank height listened to her report of his wife's state, while he held his little girl on his left arm, and the child fondly pressed her cheek against his bearded face, to which he had quietly lifted her as soon as he alighted from Libby's buggy.
Libby introduced Grace as Dr. Breen, and drove on, and Maynard gave her the title whenever he addressed her, with a perfect effect of single-mindedness in his gravity, as if it were an every-day thing with him to meet young ladies who were physicians. He had a certain neighborly manner of having known her a long time, and of being on good terms with her; and somewhere there resided in his loosely knit organism a powerful energy. She had almost to run in keeping at his side, as he walked on to the house, carrying his little girl on his arm, and glancing about him; and she was not sure at last that she had succeeded in ****** him understand how serious the case had been.
"I don't know whether I ought to let you go in," she said, "without preparing her."
"She's been expecting me, has n't she?" he asked.
"Yes, but"--"And she's awake?"
"Then I'll just go in and prepare her myself. I'm a pretty good hand at preparing people to meet me. You've a beautiful location here, Dr.
Breen; and your town has a chance to grow. I like to see a town have some chance," he added, with a sadness past tears in his melancholy eyes.
"Bella can show me the way to the room, I reckon," he said, setting the little one down on the piazza, and following her indoors; and when Grace ventured, later, to knock at the door, Maynard's voice bade her come in.
He sat beside his wife's pillow, with her hand in his left; on his right arm perched the little girl, and rested her head on his shoulder. They did not seem to have been talking, and they did not move when Grace entered the room. But, apparently, Mrs. Maynard had known how to behave to George Maynard, and peace was visibly between them.
"Now, you tell me about the medicines, Dr. Breen, and then you go and get some rest," said Maynard in his mild, soothing voice. "I used to understand Mrs. Maynard's ways pretty well, and I can take care of her.
Libby told me all about you and your doings, and I know you must feel as pale as you look."
"But you can't have had any sleep on the way," Grace began.
"Sleep?" Maynard repeated, looking wanly at her. "I never sleep. I'd as soon think of digesting."
After she had given him the needed instructions he rose from the rocking-chair in-which he had been softly swinging to and fro, and followed her out into the corridor, caressing with his large hand the child that lay on his shoulder. "Of course," she said, "Mrs. Maynard is still very sick, and needs the greatest care and attention."
"Yes, I understand that. But I reckon it will come out all right in the end," he said, with the optimistic fatalism which is the real religion of our orientalizing West. "Good-night, doctor."
She went away, feeling suddenly alone in this exclusion from the cares that had absorbed her. There was no one on the piazza, which the moonlight printed with the shadows of the posts and the fanciful jigsaw work of the arches between them. She heard a step on the sandy walk round the corner, and waited wistfully.
It was Barlow who came in sight, as she knew at once, but she asked, "Mr. Barlow?"
"Yes'm," said Barlow. "What can I do for you?"
"Nothing. I thought it might be Mr. Libby at first. Do you know where he is?"
"Well, I know where he ain't," said Barlow; and having ineffectually waited to be questioned further, he added, "He ain't here, for one place.
He's gone back to Leyden. He had to take that horse back."
"Oh!" she said.
"N' I guess he's goin' to stay."
"To stay? Where?"
"Well, there you've got me again. All I know is I've got to drive that mare of his'n over to-morrow, if I can git off, and next day if I can't.
Did n't you know he was goin'?" asked Barlow, willing to recompense himself for the information he had given.
"Well!" he added sympathetically, at a little hesitation of hers:
