"Before we go upstairs," he said, drawing his chair close to Priscilla's and lowering his voice, "I wish to say to you what, doubtless, there is no real need of saying. I simply emphasize the necessity. The young man who requires your services is Clyde Huntter. This means nothing to you, but it does to many others. He is supposed to be in—Bermuda. You understand?"
"Yes, Doctor Hapgood."
"The case is a particularly tragic one, such an one as you may encounter later on in your career. It demands all your sympathy, encouragement, and patience. Mr. Huntter is as fine a man, as upright a one, as I know, his ideals and—and present life are above reproach. He is paying a bitter debt for youthful and ignorant folly. I believed this impossible, but so it is. I am thankful to say, however, that he has every reason to hope that the future, after this, is secure. I have chosen you to care for him, because I know your ability; have heard of your powers of reticence and cheerfulness. I depend upon you absolutely."
"Thank you, Doctor Hapgood."
Priscilla's face had gone deadly white, but never having heard Huntter's name before, she was impersonal in her feeling.
"I will do my best."
The days following were days of strain and torture to Priscilla. Her patient was a man who appealed to her strongly, pathetically. There were hours when his gloom and depression would almost drag her along to the depths into which he sank; then again he would beg her to pardon him for his brutal thoughtlessness.
"Sit there, Miss Glynn," he said one day. "The sunshine is rather niggardly, but when it rests on your hair—it lasts longer."
"Oh, my poor hair!"
"Poor? It looks like a gold mine." Then: "I wish you would read to me. No; nothing recent or superficial. Something from the old, cast-iron writers who knew how to use thumb screws and rack. There's something wholesome in them; something you buck up against. They make you writhe and groan, but they leave you with the thought that—you've lived through something."