“Did you meet the doctor, Tony?” said she, as she opened the door for him.
“No; how should I meet him? I've not been to the Burn Bide.”
“But he has only left the house this minute,—you must have passed each other.”
“I came down the cliff. I was taking a short cut,” said he, as he threw himself into a seat, evidently tired and weary.
“He has been here to say that he's off for Derry to-night with the mail to meet Dolly.”
“To meet Dolly!”
“Yes, she's coming back; and the doctor cannot say why, for she's over that fever she had, and getting stronger every day; and yet she writes, 'You must come and fetch me from Derry, father, for I 'm coming home to you.' And the old man is sore distressed to make out whether she's ill again, or what's the meaning of it. And he thought, if he saw you, it was just possible you could tell him something.”
“What could I tell him? Why should he imagine I could tell him?” said Tony, as a deep crimson flush covered his face.
“Only how she was looking, Tony, and whether you thought she seemed happy where she was living, and if the folk looked kind to her.”
“I thought she looked very sickly, and the people about her—the woman at least—not over-kind. I'm not very sure, too, that Dolly herself was n't of my mind, though she did n't say so. Poor girl!”