Mary McAdam was an important personage about that time. The White Fish Lodge had become famous. Without bar or special privilege of any sort, the house was patronized by the best class of tourist. Mary was a born proprietress, and, while she extracted the last penny due her, always gave full value in return. She and Mary Terhune did the cooking; a bevy of clean, young Indian girls from Wyland Island served as waitresses and maids, their quaint, keen reserve was charming, and no better public house could have been found on the Little or Big Bay.
Priscilla drifted to the Lodge as naturally as a flower turns to the sun. The easy-going people, the laughter and merriment appealed strongly to her, and again did she cause Jerry-Jo serious displeasure and arouse her father's lurking suspicions.
"Watch her! watch her!" was his warning, and Theodora returned to her fears and tears.
CHAPTER VIII
Anton Farwell had, little by little, accepted the fate of those who, deprived of many blessings, learn to depend on a few. As the remaining senses are sharpened by the loss of one, so in this man's life the cramping process, begun by his own wrongdoing, and prolonged and completed by other conditions, had the effect of focussing all his power on the atoms that went to the making up of the daily record of his days. Had he kept a diary it would have been interesting from its very lack of large interest. And yet, with all this narrowing down, a certain fineness and purpose evolved that were both touching and inspiring. He never complained, not even to himself. After recognizing the power which Ledyard held in his life, he relinquished the one hope that had held him to the past. Then, for a year or two, the light of the doctor's contempt, which had been turned on him, took the zest from the small efforts he had made for better living and caused him to distrust himself. He saw himself what he knew Ledyard thought him—a mean, cowardly creature, and yet, in his better moments, he knew this was not so.
"Men have made friends of mice and insects in prison," he argued; "they have kept their reason by so doing; why, in heaven's name, shouldn't I play with these people here and make life possible?"
But try as he might he found his courage failing, and more and more he dwelt apart and clung to the few—Priscilla Glenn, Mary McAdam, and old Jerry McAlpin—who regarded him in the light of a priest to whom they might confess freely.
Then one of Farwell's dogs died and he was genuinely anxious at the effect this had upon him.
"So this is what I've come to!" he muttered as he buried the poor brute, while the tears fell from his eyes and the other dog whined dolorously beside him—"broken hearted over—a mongrel!" But he got another dog!