A Cry in the Wilderness Part 24

"You do?" He looked surprised.

"Yes, she told me something of her life." He turned squarely to me then.

"How came she to?" He asked bluntly.

"Now, courage, Marcia Farrell, out with it," I said to myself, but aloud:

"She said I resembled some one whom she knew years ago--some one who, she said, had 'missed her footing'."

"She said that?"

I nodded. "Then she spoke of her own life and what came of it--how she had tried to save others; and one thing led on to another until I felt I had always known her."

He turned again to look at me, and it was given me to read his very thought:--Have you ever come near missing your footing? Did Delia Beaseley save you from any pitfall?

I answered his unspoken thought:

"Oh, you may take my word for it I am wholly respectable--always have been. I could n't have answered your advertis.e.m.e.nt if I had n't been."

"The deuce you are! Well, young lady, I 'll ask you not to answer a man's thoughts again before he has given them expression; it's uncanny." He was growling a little.

I laughed aloud, for it delighted me to puzzle him a bit, especially with the revelation of my ident.i.ty in prospect. I was enjoying the pung ride too. We were on the river road. The black tree trunks, standing out against the white snow-covered expanse of the St.

Lawrence, seemed to speed past us. The sharp bits of ice-snow flew from the fleet horses' hoofs, and now and then one stung my cheek.

"Cale informed me that you worked in the New York Library; may I ask how you happened to answer the advertis.e.m.e.nt?"

"I wanted to get away from the city--far away."

"Tired of it--like the rest of us?"

"Yes--and I was ill." He gave me a look that was suddenly wholly professional.

"Long?"

"Ten weeks."

"What was it?"

"Typhoid pneumonia with pleuri--"

"And you were going to come out with me for a spin in that ulster!"

He roared so at me that the horses, taking fright at the sound of his voice, plunged suddenly and gave him plenty to do to calm them into a trot again. I enjoyed the equine gymnastics so promptly provided for his diversion.

"I was at St. Luke's." I volunteered this information when he was free to receive it.

"St. Luke's, eh? That's where you heard of this old curmudgeon."

"Yes, there; and from Delia Beaseley, and Jamie, and Mrs. Macleod."

"By the way, you and Jamie seem to be great friends."

"I love him," I said emphatically.

"H'm, lucky dog; better not tell him so."

"Why not?" I asked, at once on the defensive.

The Doctor compressed his lips in a fashion that said as plainly as if he had spoken, "Unsophisticated at twenty-six; I don't believe her!"

"I love Cale, too, and he is my own kind."

"Cale 's all right; I 'm going to know him better before the week is out. And how about Mrs. Macleod?"

"Mrs. Macleod is Jamie's mother, and I like her and respect her--but she 's not easy to love."

"That's true--she is not easy to love. About the salary," he said changing the subject; "I intended to pay it myself until you were installed on the farm; it is a favor to me to be allowed to help out Mrs. Macleod. I knew from private sources that she needed someone to cheer her here in this Canadian country; it's a great change from her home in Crieff, and then she carries Jamie on her heart all the time.

I insisted this morning on taking charge of the whole business, you included," he smiled ruefully, "but Ewart would n't hear to it. He argues that so long as you are in his house, and your work is--well, we 'll call it home-making, he, being the beneficiary has the sole right to pay for his benefits."

"That's just what I told Mrs. Macleod and Jamie I would try to make of you and him--"

"The d.i.c.kens you did! A beneficiary of me, eh?"

"Yes, and I shall try to," I said earnestly. The Doctor grew serious at once.

"It will not be a hard task, Miss Farrell; I begin to dream of what the farm will be like with you to help make it a home for me and, in time, many others, as I hope."

"Doctor Rugvie, would you mind calling me by my first name?"

"Yes, I should mind very much, because it's exactly what I have wanted to do, but did not feel at liberty to."

"In my position it is better that all in the house should call me Marcia."

"Your position?" He looked around at me with a queer twist of his upper lip. "What is your position?"

"According to the advertis.e.m.e.nt it was for service on a farm in Canada."

"And now you find yourself in an anomalous one? Is that the trouble?"

"Yes, just it. I don't know what is to be required of me--I really don't see how I am to earn my salt."

"Don't bother yourself about that." He frowned slightly. "I confess this insistence on Ewart's part to pay you, complicates matters a little. _I_ wanted to be boss this time."

"And I hoped you would be mine, anyway," I said mutinously. "I am far from satisfied to have my business dealings with Mr. Ewart, a stranger and an alien."

"It will be only for a time; I am going to tell you, all of you, about my farm plans this evening. I have n't spoken yet to Ewart very freely about them."

The horses were turned homewards, and I felt that little time was left me to ask any intimate questions of the Doctor concerning myself. I could not find the right word--and I knew I was not trying with any degree of earnestness. "I 'll put it off till the last of the week," I said to myself; then I began to speak of that self, for I knew the Doctor was waiting for this and, wisely, was biding my time. I was grateful to him.