"If you love her," the other whispered, "you will never let her come."
Miss Knowlton asked, presently, whether she should not answer Ellen, and he nodded, and turned away his face. It was surely not required that he prevent her from coming! His heart warmed to Miss Knowlton and he knew nothing of her kindly postscript. Her eyes were as sharp as Fetzer's, and she had once had a suspicion. But it was unfounded, she knew perfectly, and she had only friendly feelings for Ellen. Sometimes the beating of her heart almost suffocated her. Stephen was helpless without her and she believed that his misfortune had narrowed to nothingness the gap between them. She interpreted a growing humility and gentleness as a growing regard for herself. A little color remained steadily in her cheeks and she acquired a sort of majesty of mien. She selected the friends who should be admitted to his room; she barred out those who, she thought, would prove exciting; she did not inform him, until he was almost well, of the concern for his life which was almost city-wide.
Stephen continued humble and patient. The next week he went to the shore with Miss Knowlton and Fickes. He had now, he believed, given Ellen up. Among his friends was a conspiracy; they all had confidence in the healing power of occupation and they meant presently to bring him back to an orderly house and to an office set to run with its former machine-like regularity. Devoted assistance should make his affliction of no account, for his office practice at least.
At the shore he passed an intolerable month. Miss Knowlton read to him in a voice which took on after the first page the mournful tones of an Æolian harp set to sing in a south wind. She selected religious compositions which made him blush. Fickes carried him about, over miles upon miles of smooth roads, but Fickes, always a dull companion, was now awed and more silent than ever.
He put the thought of Ellen away and sometimes he recited the Creed against her. He meant when he was delivered from Miss Knowlton to look secretly into this strange return to his believing youth, to discover whether he had been cheated in his weakness or helped in his need. At times, looking down at his shoulder, he said bitterly, "I should have something in exchange." At other times he dwelt upon possibilities which he could not put into words, but which answered the questions of weariness and despair.
There was a cruel bitterness in the fact that Ellen did nothing whatever to make the putting away of her difficult. Of all the world, she was indifferent to his misery. He evolved presently an unworthy explanation for her absence—she was repelled by his maimed condition. Then he grew sensitive to the eye of mankind.
One day Miss Knowlton approached his shaded chair on the beach with a letter. Unexpectedly another conspirator had joined them.
"To Dr. S. Lanfair, M.D."
Stephen smiled. Poor Fetzer, was an eye easier to lose than an arm?