"Mine."
Her response as she bustled away, "Has every one gone mad!" set them all
smiling, and Carter's remark, "A bit too long in the oven," eloquently
described her crustiness.
But if long study of people from interior views had left the matron
purblind as to outward signs, sympathies, and emotions, she was not so
short-sighted but that she came to a full stop at the sight of
Carruthers, who stood, hands clinched, like a naughty boy, face to the
wall.
"You poor man!" But though her tone was gentle as her touch on his
shoulder, he threw her hand fiercely away and strode off uttering an
unmistakable "damn."
"Another lunatic!" she tartly commented, and was confirmed in that
flattering opinion when, instead of pining in romantic fashion, he fell
in love again and married a sweet girl the following summer.
Left thus alone in the case, the head doctor nodded his satisfaction at
the patient's decided improvement, while his further instructions were
short as pleasant--"Same treatment, continued at intervals."
These orders, be sure, were faithfully observed. Indeed, he had scarcely
passed out than--but the next hour is their's, intrusion would be
impertinent. Sufficient that its confidences left each possessed of the
other's every thought and feeling throughout their separation.
Her eyes dancing, she broke a happy silence to say: "You were dreadfully
transparent. Did you really think I couldn't see through your
misbehavior?" Then she told of how Dorothy had confided to her his
appeal to Hart and efforts at self-improvement. "But," she added, with
a sigh that was almost plaintive, "I wouldn't have cared."
Also she told him of her proud espionage upon him at the general
manager's dinner; in return for which she learned how he had waited at
the forks of his own trail that winter's night--waited while his ponies
shivered in the bitter wind until he picked hers and Elinor Leslie's
voices from the groan of passing runners.