intercept and interpret her glance.
"Would you care for me to see the Rector of the Academy about Nessie?" he asked at length. "I know Gibson well and might in confidence ask his assistance in the matter. I had thought at first of speaking to Sir John Latta, but your father is engaged at the office of the shipyard now and it might prejudice him there. We doctors have got to be careful of what we are about. It's a precarious existence," he smiled. "Would you like me to see Gibson, or would you rather send Nessie to me to let me have a look at her?"
"I think if you saw the Rector, it would be splendid. He had great influence with Father once," she replied gratefully. "Nessie is so frightened of Father she would be afraid to come here."
"And were you not afraid to come?" he asked, with a look which seemed to comfort her with its knowledge of her past fortitude.
"Yes," she answered truthfully. "I was afraid you would refuse to see me. I have no one to ask for help for Nessie but you. She is so young. Nothing must happen to her!" She paused, then added in a low tone, "You might not have wished to see me. You know all about me, what I have been!"
"Don't! Don't say that, Mary! All that I know of you is good. I have remembered you for these years because of your goodness, your gentleness and your courage." As he looked at her now he would have added, "and your loveliness," but he refrained and said instead, "In all my life I never met such a sweet, unselfish spirit as yours. It graved itself unforgettably upon my mind. I hate to hear you belittle yourself like that."
She flushed at the warm comfort of his words and replied:
"It's like you to say that, but I don't deserve it. Still, if I can do something for Nessie to make up for my own mistakes, I'll be happy."
"Are you an old woman to talk like that! What age are you?" he cried impetuously. "You're not twenty-two yet. Good Lord! You Ye only a child, with a whole lifetime in front of you. All the pain you've suffered can be wiped out you've had no real happiness yet worth the name. Begin to think of yourself again, Mary. I saw you looking at that picture of mine when I came in. I saw how it took you out of yourself. Make your life a whole gallery of these pictures you must amuse yourself read all the books you can get take up some interest. I might get you a post as companion where you could travel abroad."
She was, in spite of herself, strangely fascinated by his words and, casting her thoughts back, she recollected how she had been thrilled in like fashion by Denis, when he had opened out entrancing avenues for her with his talk of Paris, Rome and of travel through wide, mysterious lands. That had been a long time ago, when he had moved horizons for her with a sweep of his gay, audacious hand and whirled fier abroad on the carpet of his graphic, laughing speech. He read her thoughts with a faculty of intuition which confounded her and said slowly:
"You still think of him, I see."
She looked up in some slight dismay, divining that he misjudged the full tendency of her emotion, which was merely a retrospective sadness, but, feeling that she could not be disloyal to the memory of Denis, she did not speak.
"I would like to do something for you, Mary," he resumed quietly, "something which would make you happy. I have some influence. Will you allow me to find some post which is suited to you and to your worth, before I go away from here?"
She started at his words, bereft suddenly of her warm feeling of comfort, and stammered:
"Are you going away, then?"
"Yes," he replied, "I'm off within six months. I'm taking up a special branch of work in Edinburgh. I have the chance to get on the staff there something bigger than the Cottage Hospital. It's a great opportunity for me."
She saw herself alone, without his strong, resolute support, vainly endeavouring to protect Nessie from her father, interposing her own insignificant resolution between Brodie's drunken unreason and her sister's weakness, and in a flash she comprehended how much she had built on the friendship of this man before her, understood how great was her regard for him.
"It's splendid for you to have got on so well," she whispered. "But it's only what you deserve. I know you'll do as well in Edinburgh as you've done here. I don't need to wish you success."
"I don't know," he replied, "but I shall like it. Edinburgh is the city to live in grey yet beautiful. Take Prince's Street in the autumn with the leaves crackling in the gardens, and the Castle russet against the sky, and the blue smoke drifting across Arthur's Seat, and the breeze tingling, as clean and crisp as fine wine. No one could help but love it." He glowed at the thought of it and
continued, "It's my native place, of course you must forgive my pride. Still, everything is bigger there finer and cleaner, like the air."
She followed his words breathlessly, seeing vividly the picture that he drew for her, but filling it always with his own figure, so that it was not only Prince's Street which she saw but Renwick striding along its grey surface, against the mellow background of the Castle Gardens.
"It sounds beautiful. I have never been there but I can picture it all," she murmured, meaning actually that she could picture him there.
"Let me find something for you to do before I go away," he persisted; "something to take you out of that house."
She could feel that he was anxious for her to accept his offer, but she thrust the enticing prospect away from her, saying:
"I came back of my own choice to look after Nessie! I couldn't leave her now. It's been a terrible life for her for the last few months and if I went away again, anything might happen to her."
He perceived then that she was fixed upon remaining and immediately a profound concern for her future disturbed him, as if he saw her already immolated on the altar of her own unselfishness, a sacrifice, despite his intervention, to the outrageous pride of her father.
What purpose had it served for him to save her, to have helped her to escape from death, were she to drift back once again into the same environment, the same danger in a more deadly form? He was affected even to the point of marvelling at his own emotion, but quickly masking his feelings he exclaimed cheerfully:
"I'll do my best for Nessie! I'll see Gibson to-day or to-morrow. Everything that I can do shall be done. Don't worry too much about her. Take more heed of yourself."
She felt when he said these words that the purport of her visit had been achieved and, diffident of occupying his time longer, she at once arose from her chair and prepared to go. He, too, got up but made no movement to the door, remaining silent, watching her face which, as she stood erect, was touched lightly by an errant beam of the pale March sunshine, so pale in the interior of the room that it gleamed upon her skin like moonlight. Moved as another man had been moved by her in moonlight, he caught his breath at the sight of her beauty, luminous in this light, showing against the foil of her indifferent and inelegant garments, and in his imagination he clothed her in satin of a faint lavender, visioned her under the silver radiance of a soft Southern moon in a garden in Florence or upon a terrace in Naples. As she poised her small foot in its rough shoe courageously towards her departure, he wished strangely to detain her, but found no words to utter.