“Yes,” said Aderhold, surprised in his turn. “Why?”
She stammered. “I heard them talking, and though I believe not such things, I—I—”
“What things?”
She was silent for a moment, then faced him with courage. “I have heard talk that you don’t believe what other people believe, that you deny things that are in the Bible, and that maybe you practise sorcery there in the Oak Grange.... And—and some one once told me that—that people like that had always familiars which went mostly like little animals such as a cat or small dog, or sometimes a bird or a frog,—and that—and that if they offered to give you such a thing for a gift and—and you took it, you signed yourself so to the Evil One.... But—but I do not believe such things. They are against all goodness and—and good sense.”
She ended somewhat breathlessly; for all her courage, which was great, her heart was beating hard.
“You are right,” said Aderhold. “Such things are against all goodness and good sense—and they do not happen.... I was going to see a sick man, and passing by the burned cottage, I heard the cat crying, and went and took her from the boys. She’s naught but just your fireside cat. And I am a solitary man who has no familiar and knows no magic.”
He drew a heavy, oppressed breath. “I did not know that there was any such talk.... It is miserable that there should be.”
He stood leaning against a tree, with half-shut eyes. Old fears came over him in a thick and sickening wave.
“Oh—talk!” said Joan. “There’s always such a weary deal of talk.” She had regained her calm; at least she was no longer afraid of the physician. But for all that—and for all her comparative happiness this beautiful day and for her singing—she looked older and less care-free than she had done last year. Her face was thinner, and there appeared in her, now and again, a startled, listening air. It came now. “Do you hear a horse coming?”