“Bug Buler and I were up there after eggs this morning. Bug is Victor Burleigh's little boy. They board at our house,” Dennie explained. “Pigeon Place is a little cottage all covered with vines and with flowers everywhere. It's hidden away from the road just outside of town. Mrs. Marian isn't crazy nor queer, only she seldom leaves home, never goes to church, nor visits anywhere. She doesn't care for anybody, nor take any interest in Lagonda Ledge, and she keeps a Great Dane dog, as big as a calf, that is friendly to women and children, but won't let a man come near, unless Mrs. Marian says so.” Dennie paused.
“Very interesting, Miss Dennie, but what can I do?” Fenneben asked. “Shall I kill the dog and carry off the woman like the regulation grim ogre of the fairy tales?”
Dennie hesitated. Few girls would have come to a college president on such a mission as hers. But then few college presidents are like Lloyd Fenneben.
“Of course nobody likes Mrs. Marian, and my father—when he's not quite himself—says dreadful things if I mention her name.” Dennie's checks were crimson as she thought of her father. “It's none of my business, but I've felt sorry for Mrs. Marian ever since she came here. She seems like an innocent outcast.”
“That is very pitiful.” Lloyd Fenneben's voice was sympathetic.
“This morning,” continued Dennie, “Bug was playing with the dog outside, and I went into the house for the first time. Mrs. Marian is very pleasant. She asked me about my work here and I told her about Sunrise and you, and your niece, Miss Elinor, being here.”
“All the interesting features. Did you mention Professor Burgess?” The query was innocently meant, but it brought the color to Dennie Saxon's cheek.
“No, I didn't think he was in that class,” she replied, quickly. “But what surprised me was her interest in things. She is a pretty, refined, young-looking woman, with gray hair. When I was leaving I turned back to ask about some eggs for Saturday. She thought I was gone, and she had dropped her head on the table and was crying, so I slipped out without her knowing.” Dennie's gray eyes were full of tears now. “Dr. Fenneben, if talking about Sunrise made her do that, maybe you might do something for her. I pity her so. Nobody seems to care about her. My father is set against her when he is not responsible, and he might—” She stopped abruptly and did not finish the sentence.
The Dean looked out of the window at the purple mist melting along the horizon line. Down in the valley pigeons were circling above a wooded spot at a bend in the Walnut River. Fenneben remembered now that he had seen them there many times. He had a boyhood memory of a country home with pigeons flying about it.
“I wish, too, that I might do something,” he said at last. “You say she will not let men inside her gate now. I'll keep her in mind, though. The gate may open some time.”