He shook hands, and left the Rectory-parlour with Salis, the saddle creaking loudly as he mounted and then rode away.
“Good fellow, Horace,” sighed the curate, “but only fit for a West End practice, among people with plenty of time and money. I fancy myself smoking on the river bank, throwing flies and pitching in ground bait. It’s absurd!”
“Poor Miss Salis!” said Mary to herself, as she repeated the doctor’s sympathetic, pitying words; and it was forced upon her more and more plainly in what light he regarded her. She was his patient—nothing more. No; this was unjust, for he always treated her most warmly—as a friend—almost as a sister.
But her old hopes and aspirations seemed to be dead for ever, without promise of revival.
At that moment the curate returned.
“Poor Leo!” he said. “I could not do that,” as he again thought of how attached she had become to the mare, and how the handsome little creature had seemed to divert her attention from the past.
“It would not do, Mary,” he said aloud. “Poor girl! I seem to have been very hard upon her about Tom Candlish, and it would be too bad to deprive her of the mare.”
“She appears very fond of it,” said Mary gravely.
“And the more fond she gets of it the less she thinks about anything else, eh?” Mary was silent.
“She never mentions him to you now?”