Three days! She regretted now that she had not said to herself, “Courage, soldier,” and gone to say good-bye to him when he called to her. Perhaps she would not see him again till after the other woman—till after the wife-came. Then—then the house would be empty; then the house would be so still. And then John Sibley would come and—
CHAPTER XI. IN THE CAMP OF THE DESERTER
Three days passed, but before they ended there came another telegram from Mrs. Crozier stating the time of her expected arrival at Askatoon. It was addressed to Kitty, and Kitty almost savagely tore it up into little pieces and scattered it to the winds. She did not even wait to show it to the Young Doctor; but he had a subtle instinct as to why she did not; and he was rather more puzzled than usual at what was passing before his eyes. In any case, the coming of the wife must alter all the relations existing in the household of the widow Tynan. The old, unrestrained, careless friendship could not continue. The newcomer would import an element of caste and class which would freeze mother and daughter to the bones. Crozier was the essence of democracy, which in its purest form is akin to the most aristocratic element and is easily affiliated with it. He had no fear of Crozier. Crozier would remain exactly the same; but would not Crozier be whisked away out of Askatoon to a new fate, reconciled to being a receiver of his wife’s bounty.
“If his wife gets her arms round his neck, and if she wants to get them there, she will, and once there he’ll go with her like a gentleman,” said the Young Doctor sarcastically. Admiring Crozier as he did, he also had underneath all his knowledge of life an unreasonable apprehension of man’s weakness where a woman was concerned. The man who would face a cannon’s mouth would falter before the face of a woman whom he could crumple with one hand.
The wife arrived before Crozier returned, and the Young Doctor and Kitty met the train. The local operator had not divulged to any one the contents of the telegram to Kitty, and there were no staring spectators on the platform. As the great express stole in almost noiselessly, like a tired serpent, Kitty watched its approach with outward cheerfulness. She had braced herself to this moment, till she looked the most buoyant, joyous thing in the world. It had not come easily. With desperation she had fought a fight during these three lonely days, till at last she had conquered, sleeping each night on Crozier’s star-lit bed of boughs and coming in with the silver-grey light of dawn. Now she leaned forward with heart beating fast; but with smiling face and with eyes so bright that she deceived the Young Doctor.
There was no sign of inward emotion, of hidden troubles, as she leaned forward to see the great lady step from the train—great in every sense was this lady in her mind; imposing in stature, a Juno, a tragedy queen, a Zenobia, a daughter of the gods who would not stoop to conquer. She looked in vain, however, for the Mrs. Crozier she had imagined made no appearance from the train. She hastened down the platform still with keen eyes scanning the passengers, who were mostly alighting to stretch their legs and get a breath of air.
“She’s not here,” she said at last darkly to the Young Doctor who had followed her.
Then suddenly she saw emerge from a little group at the steps of a car a child in a long dress—so it seemed to her, the being was so small and delicate—and come forward, having hastily said good-bye to her fellow-passengers. As the Young Doctor said afterwards, “She wasn’t bigger than a fly,” and she certainly was as graceful and pretty and piquante as a child-woman could be.
Presently, with her alert, rather assertive blue eyes she saw Kitty, and came forward. “Miss Tynan?” she asked, with an encompassing look.