She went down to breakfast dreading the meeting with him; but Dr. Hunter said good-morning as usual, just as if nothing had happened. Marjory noticed, with a pang of self-reproach, that he looked tired, and that his eyes had a weary expression that was not usually there. He ate his breakfast in silence, but that was nothing out of the common, for they often sat through a meal with little or no conversation. Marjory hated this state of things, and yet she had never had the courage to try to alter it. She would sit and rack her brains for something to say, and then decide that it was impossible that anything she could say would interest a grown-up man, and a man so stern and silent as Uncle George. Lately she had actually come to dreading meal-times, and would be thankful when they were over and she could escape. All this was very foolish on her part, no doubt, but it arose entirely from her misunderstanding of her uncle.
Contrary to her usual custom, she hovered about the dining-room after breakfast was over that morning, trying to make up her mind to speak. She watched her uncle wind the clock on the mantelpiece, saying to herself that she would speak when he left off turning the key, but she let the opportunity slip by. Then the doctor gathered up his letters and papers and went to his study without a word or a look in her direction. In fact, he was quite unconscious of her presence for the time being; he was thinking deeply over a scientific problem which absorbed his whole attention.
Marjory despised herself for being so weak and timid, and at last scolded herself into a determination to go and knock boldly at the study door. She would be obliged to go in then; there could be no turning back or putting off.
Her heart beating very quickly, she went and knocked at the door; and in response to her uncle's "Come in," she opened it and walked across to the table at which the doctor was sitting.
Interested as he was in his work, when he saw who was the cause of this unusual disturbance, he smiled at her, asking,—
"Well, Marjory, what is it?"
The girl turned white to the lips and said, her voice low and trembling,—
"I am very sorry about yesterday; will you forgive me?"
"Of course I will, and gladly," said the doctor heartily. "My dear child, you didn't understand; you don't know that I only wish to do what is for your good. I may have made mistakes. I was told yesterday that I have made some big ones," sadly, "but I intend to try to rectify them now. Things are going to be different, little one. You are to have a companion, and you are to learn some of the things you are so anxious about. Will that please you?"
"Oh yes," eagerly.