Thomasina took one of the letters in her hand.
"Say they were written to a friend. His biography does not need me, and I had rather be invisible beside him." Thus Thomasina, who longed, in Mrs. Lister's opinion, for fame! "Now I must go over to the Listers to say good-bye to Richard."
Together Dr. Scott and Thomasina crossed the campus and at the Listers' door Dr. Scott said good-night. He could scarcely wait to get back to his study and to his pen. He did not mean to stop at his house; indeed, he thought it unlikely that his house would see him until dawn, but remembering a need for matches, he ran up the steps. There sitting on the doorstep, a valise beside her, was a small figure.
"Cora!" said Dr. Scott. "What in the world are you doing here?"
Cora rose stiffly. It seemed that she had been waiting a long time.
"I came back on the nine o'clock train."
"Where is your mother?"
"She is at Atlantic City. I told her that I wouldn't stay."
The last sentence startled Dr. Scott even more than Cora's unexpected appearance. He unlocked the door and picked up the valise. There was a new tone in her sweet voice, a tone which disturbed him, but when he got the lamp lighted and had a good look at her round little face, it would doubtless seem imaginary. Surely it could not be that she had come home so as to be near Richard Lister!
When the lamp was lit, it seemed to reveal the same Cora, a little white and tired and travel-stained, but surely not wild or violent!