The ride to Old Chester seemed to him interminable; and when, after wandering snatches of talk about the circus, the stage at last drew up at the green gate in Miss Harriet's privet hedge, his nerves were tense and his face haggard with fatigue.
At home, at his belated supper-table, his good Martha was very severe with him. "You oughtn't to allow yourself to get so tired; it's wrong. You could just as well as not have ordered your things by mail. I must say, William, flatly and frankly, that a doctor ought to have more sense. I hope there was nobody in the stage you knew to talk you to death?"
"Miss Harriet came down," William said, "but she hadn't much to say."
"I suppose she went to buy some of her horrid supplies?" Martha said. "I can't understand that woman—catching things in traps. How would she like to be caught in a trap? I asked her once—because I am always perfectly frank with people. 'How would you like to be caught in a trap, Miss Harriet?' I said. And she said, 'Oh, Annie would let me out.' You never can get a straight answer out of Harriet Hutchinson."
"My dear, I'll take another cup of tea. Stronger, please."
"My dear, strong tea isn't good for you," Martha said.
IV
When Miss Harriet woke the next morning the blue June day was flooding her room. At first she could not remember.... What was the something behind her consciousness? It came in an instant. "Trapped," she said, aloud, and turned her head to see Miss Annie at her bedside.
"What is trapped, sister?" said Miss Annie, her little old face crumpling with distress.