“Yes, I know,” I replied, averting my eyes from her face while I gave my directions as briefly as I could. “I will leave an opiate,” I said. “To-morrow, if Carstairs should not come, send for me again. If he does come,” I added, “I will talk to him and see you afterward.”
“Thank you,” she answered gently; and taking the bottle from my hand, she turned away and walked quickly back to the house.
I watched her as long as I could; and then getting into my buggy, I turned my mare’s head toward the woods, and drove by moonlight, past Buzzard’s Tree and over the Old Stage Road, to my home. “I will see Carstairs to-morrow,” was my last thought that night before I slept.
But, after all, I saw Carstairs only for a minute as he was taking the train. Life at its beginning and its end had filled my morning; and when at last I reached the little station, Carstairs had paid his visit, and was waiting on the platform for the approaching express. At first he showed a disposition to question me about the shooting, but as soon as I was able to make my errand clear, his jovial face clouded.
“So you’ve been there?” he said. “They didn’t tell me. An interesting case, if it were not for that poor woman. Incurable, I’m afraid, when you consider the predisposing causes. The race is pretty well deteriorated, I suppose. God! what isolation! I’ve advised her to send him away. There are three others, they tell me, at Staunton.”
The train came; he jumped on it, and was whisked away while I gazed after him. After all, I was none the wiser because of the great reputation of Carstairs.
All that day I heard nothing more from Jordan’s End; and then, early next morning, the same decrepit negro brought me a message.
“Young Miss, she tole me ter ax you ter come along wid me jes’ ez soon ez you kin git ready.”
“I’ll start at once, Uncle, and I’ll take you with me.”
My mare and buggy stood at the door. All I needed to do was to put on my overcoat, pick up my hat, and leave word, for a possible patient, that I should return before noon. I knew the road now, and I told myself, as I set out, that I would make as quick a trip as I could. For two nights I had been haunted by the memory of that man in the armchair, plaiting and unplaiting the fringe of the plaid shawl. And his father had done that, the woman had told me, for twenty years!