And there was something in Margaret, this passionate girl with her turbulent, troubled past, that appealed to the favored child of chastity and gave her a broader, more sympathetic outlook; gave her that peculiar knowledge the lack of which Mrs. Mayhew had once deplored. The two girls were of about the same age; they had grown to womanhood in the same town, but circumstances had forced their paths far apart. Now the threads of their lives, so different in form and color, were weaving together the pattern of a unique friendship.
Together these two visited a poor home one day, where death had entered. A little child lay dead, and they performed the last services for the little sleeper and prepared her for her rest. Together they stood by the poor little grave and heard the minister's words and saw the earth heaped above the little form. Mrs. Thorpe remained in the home, where another child lay ill. When they returned from the grave they found Dr. Eldrige Jr. ministering to the sick child. Mrs. Thorpe saw the doctor's face grow cold and grave as he greeted Geraldine, and she noted the reserve that the girl drew about herself. Yet, after the greeting was over she saw in the man's eyes a look such as a thirsty traveler might direct toward a stream of water which was beyond his reach. And on Geraldine's face there was a shadow which she had noticed there before, the shadow of a long endurance.
Some days later Mrs. Thorpe met the doctor again. He had finished his round of calls and was on his homeward way when he overtook her near her gate.
"Come in with me and rest a bit before the long climb up the hill," she said.
"Always a long, hard climb to the top of the hill," he replied. And Mrs. Thorpe, seeing that he hesitated to accept her invitation, said:
"Margaret and Geraldine have gone across the Flat to see a sick child; they will not be back for some time, I think."
Then, without further words, he opened the gate for her and accompanied her to the house. She gave him a chair by the fire and stirred up the coals in the grate, then she removed her wraps and seated herself by the fire. There was no uncertainty in her mind as to why she had asked him to come in; she knew exactly what it was she wished to say to him; but she felt that kind Providence must aid her in finding a way to say it. Since that night, when in the tragic silence a bond of sympathy had sprung up between them, she had learned a fact which she was desirous of communicating to him.
She had a personal liking for this man, and a great admiration for the manner in which he was devoting his time and skill to the relief of the unfortunate. Then, too, she had not forgotten that he had been her friend in the days of her sorest perplexity; and she knew as well as did he that his judgment and prompt action had once saved her reason. And then, when all her skies were black, at that time in her affairs when she knew not whether in all this world she had more than one thing left her, when of all she had believed she had, she was sure of just this one thing--the love of God--at this time she knew that Dr. Eldrige had by his actions, rather than by words or arguments, defended her against the malevolence of his father, and with his quiet scorn had removed the venom from the wild, improbable reports that the older man had circulated, and had maintained before her friends and acquaintances that these unreasonable tales were a disgrace, not to the one lone woman, but to the community which countenanced and repeated them.
When her friends came back to her and life began to flow again on the old level, a word dropped by one or another, a statement or a half confession from friend or casual acquaintance, revealed to Mrs. Thorpe the sincerity of this man's quiet, unostentatious friendship. Now the knowledge came to her that his life had been robbed of its happiness and all its sweetest harmonies had given place to discord. And she longed to tell him that which she knew to be a fact, that it was his own unskilled touch that was producing the discords.
"You are finding plenty of work here this winter, Mrs. Thorpe," he said. "The good you are doing is inestimable."