He was the doctor again at once, and, for the next half hour all professional gravity, and as impersonal as the sphinx; yet the woman felt through every nerve, like a musical vibration, the thrill of his firm, warm fingers, the scrutiny of his eyes. He was changed, worn through suffering rather than years, his face lined, his hair grown gray; with nothing young about him but his eyes, which sparkled with a cheer and brightness no grief could dim, for they mirrored a mind above all personal considerations, concerned with those large, loving interests belonging to humanity.
The woman felt the presence of this spirit, as if something beautiful and good had settled softly down beside her, and mutely besought her attention from herself and her narrow world. She struggled against it, yet it was like a shaft of genial sun heat, entering suddenly some frozen glen; she felt, in a heart purposely hardened against such influences, a stir, a thaw; ice was breaking, and the long-stilled waters of human affection began to flow in gentle currents, inspiring a sensation of delight that astonished and abashed her.
The doctor came and went quietly, her eyes following him. When he intercepted the look, she blushed like a schoolgirl. Too busy all that day to give her more than necessary attention, he yet lost nothing that passed and she had a sense which was oddly pleasant that he understood something of what was passing in her mind. It was terrible, too. There were moments when she wished herself miles away. Besides all the physical pain which she endured that long day, Margaret's soul was the battle-ground of a struggle far more exhausting. Ambition, pride, and love of the world fought hard against a tender, newly-born impulse, which it seemed that a single breath of reason ought to chill to death.
The coals burned red in the open stove; a little tea-table was set in the middle of the room, and in the easiest chair in the house, piled with all the available cushions, the doctor placed Margaret, taking his position opposite her. The solemn Swedish girl brought in supper, which was well cooked and served with a scrupulous cleanliness that almost atoned for the absence of a more dainty service.
The doctor's face shone with satisfaction, but his manner, although genial, was ceremonious. Margaret felt that, in the few feet intervening between them, there lay years of care and grief and disappointment. She felt a yearning to bridge the chasm, to draw nearer to him, even though she herself had to take the hard steps toward understanding.
Thought the woman: "Does he love me still?" And thought the man: "Is she tired of the world, and could she learn to love me now?"
But they spoke of music; of camp-life on the western frontier; of what they had seen, what they had read. Not a word of what they felt. A few hours later the doctor stood in his bare little soldier's bedroom, and looked in his glass. For five minutes he studied himself, and then he turned away, resolved to let no new hope spring up in his heart. But Margaret slept to dream of him, woke through the night thinking of him, as she could not have thought in the old days, when he wooed her in the confidence of his fresh, hopeful youth.
There was no hotel in the village, and the few scattered houses were crowded with the wounded passengers, lying over till well enough to proceed with their journey. Margaret was not sorry that there was no other place for her than the refuge she had been taken to. "I am thinking that I am singularly fortunate in being in the doctor's house, where I get special attention," she said to him, with a little fluttering smile.
In time these shy looks wrought upon the doctor, and his stern resolution wavered. He found himself sounding her preferences and attachments, with the unconfessed design of extracting some unguarded word that might indicate a change in her old convictions. Carrying on together these two processes—determination to refrain and resolution to pursue, which often accompanies some course of action embraced in accordance with a natural, unworldly judgment, he managed to betray to the eager girl all he wished to conceal and she wished to know. She had telegraphed to Baltimore that she would be there in ten days. Four of them had passed, and she was free from pain and able to put her foot to the ground. The doctor persisted in helping her from her couch to the chair and back again.
"But I can walk alone now," she objected.