Say and Seal Volume I Part 61

"What do you think of this for our quiet town, Miss Derrick? Has Mr.

Linden any enemies in Pattaqua.s.set--that you know?"

It was merciless in the doctor; for through all this time she had been in a state of confusion--as he knew--that made speech undesirable, though she had spoken. And she didn't answer him now, except by a quickly withdrawn glance.

"Who do you suppose loves him well enough," pursued the doctor, "to send a charge of duck shot into him like that?"

A sudden little cry of pain, driven back before it was well begun, was heard and but just heard, from Faith. The doctor looked up.

"I was afraid this--Are you faint?" he said gently.

"No sir,--" she answered; and she stood still as before, though the overspread colour which had held its ground for a good while past, had given way now and fluttered pain fully. But the doctor's words brought Mr. Linden, for the first time since his accident--to a perfectly erect position on the couch--with a total disregard of where his arm went, or what became of its bandages.

"What are you about!"

"I declare, I don't know!" said Dr. Harrison, standing back. "I _thought_ I was just disposing of you comfortably for the day--but I am open to conviction!"

The left hand let go its grasp of the couch--taken so suddenly, and for which the wounded arm took swift vengeance; and Mr. Linden laid himself down on the cushions again, the colour leaving his cheeks as fast as it had come.

"What's the matter, Linden?" said the doctor with rather a kind look of concern. "You have hurt yourself."

Faith left the room.

"I fear I have disarranged some of your work."

The doctor examined and set to rights.

"I'll see how you do this evening. What ailed you to pitch into me like that, Linden?"

"I think the 'pitching in' came upon me," he answered pleasantly.

"It seems so, indeed. I hope you won't try this kind of thing again. I am sure you won't to-day."

And so the doctor went. A quarter of an hour or a little more had gone by, when the light knock came at Mr. Linden's door that he had certainly learned to know by this time; and Faith came in, bearing a cup of cocoa. The troubled look had not entirely left her face, nor the changeful colour; but she was not thinking of herself.

"I knew you were tired, Mr. Linden--Would you like this--or some grapes--or wine--better?"

The most prominent idea in Mr. Linden's mind just then, was that he had already had what he did not like; but that had no place in the look which answered her, as he raised himself a little (and but a little) to take the cup from her hand.

"Pet would thank you better than I can now, Miss Faith."

She stood looking down at him, with a little sorrowing touch about the lines of her mouth.

"Do you know how much better two cups of cocoa are than one?" said Mr.

Linden.

"I don't know how you can have two at once, Mr. Linden."

"Then I will bestow one upon you--and wait while you get it."

"I am well--" she said, looking amused through her gravity, and shaking her head. "And besides, I couldn't take it, Mr. Linden." And to put an end to that subject, Faith had recourse to the never failing wood fire; and from thence went round the room finishing what she had failed to do in the morning; coming back at the point of time to take Mr. Linden's cup. He looked at her a little as he gave it back.

"You are too tired to go over all those lessons to-day--which do you like best? will you bring it?"

"I am not tired at all," she said with some flitting colour,--"but _you_ are, Mr. Linden. Won't you rest--sleep--till after dinner--and then, if you like, let me come?"

"I will let you come then--and stay now," he said smiling.

"Let me stay and be silent then--or do something that will not tire you. Please, Mr. Linden!"

"Your line of action lies all within that last bound," he said gently.

"But you may read French if you will--or write it and let me look over you,--or another geographical chapter. Neither need make me talk much."

The hint about looking over her writing startled Faith amazingly, but perhaps for that very reason she took it as the delicate expression of a wish. That would be a trial, but then too it would call for the least exertion on the part of her teacher. Faith was brave, if she was fearful, and too really humble to have false shame; and after an instant's doubt and hesitation, she said, though she felt it to her fingers' ends,

"My exercise is all ready--it only wants to be copied--but how could you look over me, Mr. Linden?"

"Could you do such an inconvenient thing as to use that small atlas for a table? and bring it here by me--I am not quite fit to sit up just now."

Faith said no more words, but went for her exercise and sat down to write it, as desired, under an observing and she knew a critical eye.

It was well her business engrossed her very completely; for she was in an extremely puzzled and disturbed state of mind. Dr. Harrison's words about the occasion of Mr. Linden's accident, carelessly run on, had at last unwittingly given her the clue her own innocent spirit might have waited long for; and grief and pain would have almost overcome her, but for a conflicting feeling of another kind raised by the preceding colloquy between the two gentlemen. Faith was in a state of profound uncertainty, whether Mr. Linden's words had meant anything or nothing.

They were spoken so that they might have meant nothing--but then Phil Davids had just been with him--what for?--and whatever Mr. Linden's words might have meant, Faith's knowledge of him made her instinctively know, through all the talk, that they had been spoken for the sake of warding off something disagreeable from _her_--not for himself. She tried as far as she could to dismiss the question from her thoughts--she could not decide it--and to go on her modest way just as if it had not been raised; and she did; but for all that her face was a study as she sat there writing. For amid all her abstraction in her work, the thought of the _possibility_ that Mr. Linden might have known what he was talking about, would send a tingling flush up into her cheeks; and sometimes again the thoughts of pain that had been at work would bring upon her lip almost one of those sorrowful curves which are so lovely and so pure on the lip of a little child--and rarely seen except there. All this was only by the way; it did not hinder the most careful attention to what she was about, nor the steadiest working of her quite unsteady fingers, which she knew were very likely to move _not_ according to rule.

For a little while she was suffered to go on without interruption, other than an occasional word about the French part of her exercise; but presently Mr. Linden's hand began to come now and then with a modifying touch upon her pen and fingers. At first this was done with a gentle "forgive me!" or, "if you please, Miss Faith,"--after that without words, though the manner always expressed them; and once or twice, towards the very end of the lesson, he told her that such a letter was too German--or too sophisticated; and shewed her a more Saxon way. Which admonitions he helped her, as well as he could, to bear, by a quietness which was really as kind, as it seemed oblivious of all that had disturbed or could disturb her. And the words of praise and encouragement were spoken with their usual pleasure-taking and pleasure-giving effect. All this after a time effectually distracted Faith from all other thoughts whatever. When it was done, she sat a moment looking down at the paper, then looked up and gave him a very frank and humble "Thank you, Mr. Linden!" from face and lips both.

If Faith liked approbation--that clover-honey to a woman's taste, so far beyond the sickly sweets of flattery and admiration--she might have been satisfied with the grave look of Mr. Linden's eyes at her then.

"You are a brave little child!" he said. "I wish I could do something to give you a great deal of pleasure!"

"Pleasure!"--said Faith, and what was very rare with her, not only her face flushed but her eyes, so that she turned them away,--"why it is all pleasure to me, Mr. Linden!"--'Such pleasure as I never had before,'--she was near saying, but she did not say.

"Well I must not let you tire yourself," he said with a smile, "for that would not be pleasant to me. Have you been out to-day?"

"No," said Faith, thinking of her brown moreen.

"Nor yesterday--that will not do, Miss Faith. I am afraid I must give you up to the open air for a good part of this afternoon."

"What shall I do there?" said Faith smiling.

"Let the wind take you a walk--I wish I could be of the party. But the wind is good company, Miss Faith, and talks better than many people,--and the walk you want."

"So I want to finish my wood-box," said Faith, looking at the corner of the fireplace. "And I should think you would be tired of seeing the wood lie there, Mr. Linden. I am. I have got to go out this evening too--" she said with a little hesitation,--"to see that microscope."

Mr. Linden was silent a moment.

"The microscope does make some difference," he said,--"as for the wood-box, Miss Faith, I don't think I can permit it to have any voice in the matter,--you may leave it for me to finish. But if you are going up there this evening--there are two or three things I should like to talk to you about first."

"Then shall I come by and by?" she said. "I must do something else before dinner."