"Dr. Dunlap? You don't know Dr. Dunlap."
"We met in England," daringly broke out Dr. Dunlap himself.
"He is here yet, is he?" said Rice Jones. "Doctors are supposed to be the natural protectors of ailing women; but here's one that is helping a sick girl to take her death cold."
An attack on his professional side was what Dr. Dunlap was not prepared for. He had nothing to say, and Maria's brother carried her out of the old college and took the nearest way home.
Noise was ceasing around the sinking bonfire, a clatter of wooden shoes setting homeward along the streets of Kaskaskia. Maria saw the stars stretching their great network downward enmeshing the Mississippi. That nightly vision is wonderful. But what are outward wonders compared to the unseen spiritual chemistry always at work within and around us, changing our loves and beliefs and needs?
Rice stopped to rest as soon as they were out of Dr. Dunlap's hearing. Light as she was, he felt his sister's complete prostration in her weight.
"For God's sake, Maria," he said to her in Welsh,—"is that fellow anything to you?"
She shook her head.
"But he says he met you in England."
She said nothing, and Rice also remained in silence. When he spoke again, it was in the tone of dry statement which he used for presenting cases in court.