"She was here--twenty-seven years ago--with Andre--he showed me the
tree--"
"Marcia, calm yourself. Tell me, if you can, just what you mean."
I struggled to regain my self-control, and when I could speak without
sobbing, I explained in a few words my reason for thinking my mother
was here long years before me with the man who was my father.
The Doctor listened intently.
"This makes the past clearer to me, Marcia, but at the same time it
complicates the present, the future--"
"Oh, don't let's talk about past or future!" I cried, nervously
irritated by this constant reappearance of new combinations of my past
in my present, and possible future. "Let me enjoy what is given me to
enjoy now--it is so much!"
"I must see my way, Marcia. A duty remains a duty, even if the doing
of it be postponed. I am your friend. I cannot let you wreck your
life---"
"Wreck my life? What do you mean?" I demanded sharply. "How can I
wreck it when for the first time I am in a safe harbor?"
He could not, or would not, answer me directly.
"Marcia, many a time when I have an operation to perform, the issue of
which seems to me to be a clear one of death, I grow faint-hearted and
say to myself: 'I will let the trouble take its natural course--it is
death in the end, and, at least, not under my knife.' Then I get a
grip on myself; look my duty squarely in the face--and do the best that
lies in my trained hand, in my keen sight, in my knowledge of this
frail body in which we dwell for a time. And sometimes it happens,
that, instead of the issue death, of which I felt certain, there is
life as the desired outcome--and I rejoice. I asked an old soldier
once, a veteran of the Civil War, a three years man,--he is still
living and now a minister of God's word,--how he felt in battle? Could
he describe his feelings to me?
"'Yes,' he said, 'I can. I don't know how it is with other men, but I
used to have but one fear, that of being a coward. I prayed not to
be.' That is the way I feel now towards you in relation to this
matter. But for the present we will drop the subject; we will not
discuss it further."
He changed the subject at once, and I was grateful to him. He began to
speak of Jamie.
"He is getting very restless. He told me you knew something of his
plans. What do you think of them?"
"You mean his returning to England and settling for the winter in
London? He told me that before we left Lamoral. I suppose he ought to
go. At any rate, he is much stronger, better, is n't he?"
"He is n't the same man. The truth is he was plucked away from the
white scourge as a brand from the burning. I really believe he will
not go back in the matter of health, although I wish he might remain
another year here to clinch the matter for his own sake, and mine--"
"And mine. I shall miss him so!"
The Doctor looked at me rather curiously, but did not comment on what I
said. I was wondering if he were at work reasoning to my conclusion
about Mrs. Macleod's leaving Lamoral.
"Well, my dear girl, it's a break-up all round. That's the worst of
this camping-out business. Jamie is going so soon--
"Soon? Do you mean he is going to leave Lamoral soon?"
"Yes. He had letters last night from his publishers. The book
requires his presence in London by September twenty-third. He will
have to sail by the sixteenth. Mrs. Macleod is joyful at the prospect.
Jamie told me to tell you. I think he hated to himself. He is very
fond of you, Marcia."