"Mr. Matthews," explained the young woman.
Deborah's face fell. "But, child, the minister's away with the Doctor. An' what good could he be doin' if he was here, I'd like to know? He's that poor himself."
"Oh, I don't know what he'd do, but I know he'd do something. He's that kind of a man," declared the nurse, with such conviction that, against their judgment, Deborah and Denny took heart.
"And he's not so far away but that he can be reached," added Hope.
That afternoon the dilapidated old hack from Corinth to Gordon's Mills carried a passenger.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
A FISHERMAN
"'Humph!' grunted the other, 'I've noticed that there's a lot of unnecessary things that have to be done.'"
In the crisis of Deborah's trouble, Hope had turned to Dan impulsively, as the one woman turns to the one man. When she was powerless in her own strength to meet the need she looked confidently to him.
But now that she was actually on the way to him, with Corinth behind and the long road over the hills and through the forests before, she had time to think, while the conscious object of her journey forced itself on her thinking.