“Your aunt seems less worried and far more cheerful than before,” he said.
“Yes,” assented Beatrice, “I think it is because she has told us at last why she came.” She went on to give the substance of Aunt Anna’s story.
“I surmised it was something like that,” he observed when he had heard her to the end, “and I have been thinking about it ever since. I don’t know any man in this neighborhood by the name of Deems but—I believe he is not so far away after all.”
Beatrice looked at him steadily.
“I believe that too,” she said.
Dr. Minturn stopped, for they had reached the bars, but he made no move to mount his horse.
“I’m going to give you some advice that isn’t medical,” he began. “I think more of John Herrick than of any other man in the world, barring my own son, perhaps, and I love Hester as though she were mine. And you three here, your aunt and your sister and you, I have come to think of you all as better friends than I had ever thought to make again. Your aunt—why, she has more pluck in one inch of that little sick body of hers than I have in my whole big self, and her girls aren’t far behind her. I’d like to see her have what she wants, I’d like to see you all happy.”
He drew a long breath and spoke lower.
“Whatever you think is or isn’t so,” he warned, “don’t—press anybody too hard, don’t push some one by letting him know too quickly that you have guessed who he is. Your aunt is eager and overwrought; who wouldn’t be, after ten years of anxiety and sorrow? She and you might be in too much of a hurry and ruin everything. John thinks he is safe under his assumed name and with your aunt too ill to be about. He knows who you are and perhaps why you have come, but he can’t yet make up his mind to conquer his stubborn pride. Give him time, that is all I say, give him time. He rode away into the hills the first day he saw you, but he must have thought things out up there in the mountains, for he came back again. But he can’t come all the way yet.”
“Do you think he ever will?” Beatrice asked anxiously.