But they were only words—as yet he could not "take it fighting." Nor was the knowledge that he was never to hold her quite all the grief that lay upon him as he made his way along the ill-lit streets. There was, besides, a very cruel smart—the abstract pain of being such a little to one who was so much to him.
He visited the patients who were still awake, and dressed such wounds as needed to be dressed. He heard the little peevish questions and the dull complaints just as he had done the night before. The nurse walked softly past the sleepers with her shaded lamp, and once or twice he spoke to her. And when, the doctor's duties done, the man had gained his room, he thought of his hopes the night before, and sat with elbows on the table while the hours struck, remembering what had happened since.
The necessity for returning to the house so speedily, to see his mother, was eminently distasteful; he longed to escape it. And then suddenly he warmed towards her in self-reproach, thinking it had been very hard of him to wish to neglect his mother in order to spare awkwardness to another woman. His repugnance to the task was deep-rooted, all the same, and it did not lessen as the afternoon approached. But for the fact of yesterday's indisposition, he could never have brought himself to overcome it.
The embarrassment that he had feared, however, was averted by Miss Brettan's absence.
Mrs. Kincaid said that she was quite well again to-day; Mary had told her of his call the previous evening; how long was it he had stopped?
"Oh, not very long," he said; "has the neuralgia quite gone?"
"I feel a little weary after it, that's all. Is there anything fresh, Philip?"
"Fresh?" he answered vaguely. "No, dear. I don't know that there's anything very fresh."
"You look tired yourself," she said; "I thought that perhaps you were troubled?"
She thought, too, that Miss Brettan had looked troubled, and instinct pointed to something having occurred. A conviction that her son was getting fond of her companion had been unspoken in her mind for some time, and under her placid questions now rankled a little wistfulness, in feeling that she was not held dear enough for confidence. She wanted to say to him outright: "Philip, did you tell Miss Brettan you were fond of her when I was upstairs last night?" but was reluctant to seem inquisitive. He, with never an inkling that she could suspect his love, meanwhile reflected that for Mary's continued peace it was desirable that his mother should never conjecture he had been refused.