"For her. Anything in the world he will or he must. He can use me to
the last bone, and he likes at least that. He says the great thing for
her is to be happy."
"It's surely the great thing for every one. Why, therefore," Mrs.
Lowder handsomely asked, "should we cry so hard about it?"
"Only," poor Susie wailed, "that it's so strange, so beyond us. I mean
if she can't be."
"She must be." Mrs. Lowder knew no impossibles. "She _shall_ be."
"Well--if you'll help. He thinks, you know, we _can_ help."
Mrs. Lowder faced a moment, in her massive way, what Sir Luke Strett
thought. She sat back there, her knees apart, not unlike a picturesque
ear-ringed matron at a market-stall; while her friend, before her,
dropped their items, tossed the separate truths of the matter one by
one, into her capacious apron. "But is that all he came to you for--to
tell you she must be happy?"
"That she must be _made_ so--that's the point. It seemed enough, as he
told me," Mrs. Stringham went on; "he makes it somehow such a grand
possible affair."
"Ah well, if he makes it possible!"
"I mean especially he makes it grand. He gave it to me, that is, as
_my_ part. The rest's his own."
"And what's the rest?" Mrs. Lowder asked.
"I don't know. _His_ business. He means to keep hold of her."
"Then why do you say it isn't a 'case'? It must be very much of one."
Everything in Mrs. Stringham confessed to the extent of it. "It's only
that it isn't _the_ case she herself supposed."
"It's another?"
"It's another."
"Examining her for what she supposed he finds something else?"
"Something else."
"And what does he find?"
"Ah," Mrs. Stringham cried, "God keep me from knowing!"
"He didn't tell you that?"
But poor Susie had recovered herself. "What I mean is that if it's
there I shall know in time. He's considering, but I can trust him for
it--because he does, I feel, trust me. He's considering," she repeated.
"He's in other words not sure?"
"Well, he's watching. I think that's what he means. She's to get away
now, but to come back to him in three months."
"Then I think," said Maud Lowder, "that he oughtn't meanwhile to scare
us."
It roused Susie a little, Susie being already enrolled in the great
doctor's cause. This came out at least in her glimmer of reproach.
"Does it scare us to enlist us for her happiness?"
Mrs. Lowder was rather stiff for it. "Yes; it scares _me_. I'm always
scared--I may call it so--till I understand. What happiness is he
talking about?"