“Where is that dog?” asked Miss Keith, abruptly. “I don’t know what Tatters will say to him, so you had best not bring him in too sudden.”
“That’s what the man said,” replied the Cub, cheerfully, “but your dog couldn’t help liking Pam; she’d make friends with a lion.”
“She. Oh, that’s different,” sniffed Miss Keith.
For the moment Dr. Russell was busy in taking Adam Lawton’s pulse, and when Brooke turned to speak to Robert Stead he had silently slipped away. “Never mind, Miss Brooke,” said the doctor, who read her thoughts; “Stead is a strange fellow, though a man to be trusted, but I know of no more bitter punishment to him than verbal thanks. You may need to remember this. I found out long ago that the best gratitude that any one may show him is to let him have a motive for doing something, no matter how trivial, for some one else,—lack of motive is his curse.”
Then Dr. Russell also passed out into the living room, and the three were left alone.
“Mother, are you glad that we have come?” asked Brooke, going to her with that new look of complete understanding that each had worn toward the other since that fateful night when Brooke had decided.
“Glad, my daughter? I cannot say how thankful! Oh, if only I could be sure that we could stay!”