A ghost of a smile flitted across Reed's face, although the hair still lay damp upon his temples.
"That we had been fighting, doctor?" he inquired. "Your fatherly fears misled you. I haven't seen her for two days."
"Queer!" It was evident that Doctor Keltridge, as he rose, was thinking things out loud. "She was all right at breakfast, jolly as you please. Then she went out on some errands. I was out for luncheon, and so missed her. When she came down to dinner, she hadn't any appetite and was very feverish. What's more, if it had been anybody but Olive, I'd have vowed she'd cried her eyes out, all the afternoon."
"And this morning?" Reed's accent showed that he was profoundly worried. Tears, indeed, were out of all harmony with his experience of Olive Keltridge.
The doctor's reply came crisply.
"Apparently, she'd cried them in again." Then once more he bent above the couch where Opdyke lay. "Hang on to the tail of every sort of hope, Reed," he bade him cheerily. "It's not an especially amusing occupation; but it is about the only thing for us to do at present. I'll look in on you, in the morning, to make sure how you slept. By the way," he tossed the last words back across the threshold; "as long as you haven't much else upon your hands, I think I'll order Olive to come down here, and let you cheer her up a little." And, before Reed could answer, he was gone.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
If Reed Opdyke had gained any inkling of the wide swath of woe and consequent spiritual doubtings that he was cutting among the closest of his personal friends, he would have fallen to plucking out his hair in mingled rage and shamed amusement. Mercifully, however, that humiliating knowledge was denied him. As a rule, one keeps that sort of questionings from their subject; as a rule, he is the last person in the world to be aware of them.
Reed Opdyke, then, was thoroughly perplexed, next afternoon, when Brenton walked in upon him. The change in the young rector, more than usually obvious, that afternoon, took Opdyke by surprise. He had gained no inkling that anything was going really wrong, in that direction. To all outward seeming, Scott Brenton ought to have been riding on the crest of the ecclesiastical wave. In worldly parlance, Saint Peter's Parish was on the boom. The administration of it had completely outgrown Brenton's time and strength, and a curate was in prospect, with a deaconess or two lurking in the more remote perspective.