Often he would sit under the shade of some tree, and look down over the lake, especially upon the hospital, which appeared like a speck in the distance. He would picture Beryl—not Nurse Marion to him—moving about the building, and attending to the wants of the patient. He knew that Nance was there most of the day, talking with Beryl, and looking into her face. The latter was constantly before him, not as a nurse, with hair streaked with grey, but as he had seen her seated at the piano on that Christmas eve as he watched her through the window of her old home. All the love which he then had for this beautiful woman came back upon him with greater intensity now because of the smouldering fire of long years, and the thought that she could never be his, nor could he speak to her, nor listen to her voice.
Every night Martin would come back home with face drawn and haggard, and an absent, far-away look in his eyes. Nance became much worried about him, and confided her trouble to Dick.
"Perhaps it is the arrival of the miners that is affecting him," the latter suggested.
"It may be that," Nance mused. "Still I cannot understand him. He is away from home most of the day, and when he comes back he looks so strange. I asked him to go to service Sunday night and play with me."
"Will he?" Dick eagerly inquired. "That would be such a help."
"No, he will not go, and he made me promise that I would never ask him again."
"Why? I wonder."
"He made me promise further that I would never ask him to tell the reason why he would not go."
"Oh!"
Dick was as much puzzled as Nance over Martin's strange behaviour, and the next day he mentioned the matter to Tom. It was Sunday afternoon, and the prospector had come into town to be early for the service, and to assist in any way he could with the preparations.