Martha heard it, but the sound carried no comfort to her heart. At best, it could only mean that Dr. Ballard had arrived and—Dr. Ballard was not Katherine! Katherine for whom her grandmother had been vainly calling all through the day.
"She'll be here presently," Martha had answered. "She's gone out." "She'll come in pretty soon, now." "I expect her any minute."
Once, the little old woman had made a mighty effort, gathered her forces together, and brought out the question,
"Has she left me? Gone to Boston?"
Martha could not have escaped her searching eyes, if she had tried. She met them squarely, and told her untruth as convincingly as if it had been the truth. In the depths of her soul, she "had the faith to believe" it was the truth. "Only, I'm bound to confess, it don't look like it."
"Leave you? Gone to Boston? Not on your life. Miss Katherine's a good child. Even if she'd got kinda bewizzled-like, an' started off, meanin' to go, she wouldn't 'a' went. She'd turn back, an' come home. You can take it from me! I know Miss Katherine."
But the hands of the clock had slipped around, and Katherine had not come home.
Dr. Driggs dropped in, like the rest of the neighbors, to "inquire." He did not venture inside the sick-room, but when Martha described the situation, Madam Crewe's hungry longing to keep up until she could see her grandchild, he left something to be administered that, he thought, "might help along, some, maybe."
It did.
After she had taken it, the wonderful little soul revived amazingly. She beckoned Martha to her with a look, whispering out the difficult syllables, as if on her last breath—