“Hah! I knew there was something on his mind. Who does he want to see?” demanded the doctor.
“A—a young lady.”
“Hah!” snorted the physician again. “I thought he had more sense! Well, who is she?”
“Miss Bowman, who lives down at the Inn with her brother.”
“Hah!” and the doctor’s third snort was greater than those that had gone before. “I did think Nelse Haley had more sense. But if he wants her he might as well have her. But only for a few moments, and tell her to humor him. She can cross him as much as she wants to when he is well; but his mind must be at rest now, or I shall not answer for the consequences,” and the gruff old doctor strode away, shaking his head as he went.
And he went before Janice could finish her observations. She had wished to ask the doctor to stop in and speak to Annette himself. But, it seemed, the duty devolved upon her.
When she left Mrs. Beasely’s, having done all she could to help the troubled lady, she went straight to the Inn. She knew that Frank was away and that made her visit all the harder. At this time of year Ma’am Parraday, as the traveling salesmen called her, kept but one maid to help her—a Swedish girl so blankly ignorant that she scarcely knew enough “to lift one foot out of the way of t’other,” as the innkeeper’s wife expressed it. There was no use giving her name to this girl, for she wouldn’t have remembered it till she got to Annette’s sitting-room door; so Janice followed on behind the hulking figure and waited while the girl thundered a summons on the portal.
“For the love of the land, come in!” cried Annette’s querulous voice from within. “You’ll be the death of me, Amalia. My nerves are all frazzled by your pounding on the door. What is it—towels? or a pitcher of water? Or—— My goodness! Janice Day! What do you want?”
The welcome she received did not help Janice in her errand; but perhaps it brought her more bluntly to it.
“Mr. Haley is very ill,” she said. “He is threatened with pneumonia. Dr. Poole says he seems troubled about something, and he has expressed a desire to see you.”