Rich sighed and walked right in, the door closing behind her as she crossed the room, and stood gazing down, her head bent, and handy clasped, while for the moment she forgot her nerve-pains, and the tears started to her eyes.
“Poor father!” she sighed; “always so kind and gentle in spite of all. How do I know what he may suffer beneath the mask he wears?”
She thought of the prosperity they had once enjoyed, the many patients who came, and how, in this very room, as a child, he used to play with her long curling hair, while she, with childlike delight, emptied the little wooden bowl, and counted how many guineas papa had received that morning.
She recalled, too, the carriage in which she had sat waiting, while he, the handsome young doctor, had made his calls upon rich patients; and then, like a cloud, came creeping up the memories of the gradual decline of his practice, as he had devoted himself more and more to the dream of his life—this discovery of a vital fluid which should repair the waste of all disease, and with the indulgence in his chimera came the poverty and despair.
“Poor father!” she sighed again, bending down and kissing the broad white forehead; “there has never been anything between us but love.”
She rose slowly, went to a corner where a faded old dressing-gown hung upon a chair, and this she softly laid over the sleeping man, gazed at the fire, which was burning brightly, and then stole away with the agonising pang, forgotten for the moment, sweeping back, and seeming to drive her mad.
“I see yer a-kissing of him, Miss,” said Bob, grinning, as she closed the door.
Rich turned upon him angrily; but the boy was looking dreamily towards the doctor, and rubbing his shock head of hair.
“Don’t he look niste when he’s asleep like that? There ain’t such a good-looking gent nowhere’s about here as our master.”
There was so much genuine admiration in the boy’s tones that the angry look gave place to one of half amusement, half pity.