Mrs. Leverich stopped her carriage one day to greet Dosia, and to ask her, with a tentative semblance of her old effusion, to come and make her a visit—an effusion which immediately died down into complete non-interest, on Dosia’s polite refusal; and the incident was not especially heart-racking at the time, though afterwards it set her unaccountably trembling. Mrs. Leverich had in the carriage with her a small, thin, long-nosed, under-bred-looking man with a pale-reddish mustache and hair, who, gossip said, passed most of his time at the Leverichs’—he was seen out driving alone with Myra nearly every day. He was “an old friend from home.” It had been gossip at first, but it was growing to be scandal now, with audible wonder as to how much Mr. Leverich knew about it.
Her avoidance of George Sutton was as nothing to his desire of avoiding her; he dived with surreptitious haste down side streets when he saw her coming, or disappeared within shop doorways. Once, when Dosia confronted him inadvertently on the platform of a car, and he had perforce to take off his hat and murmur, “Good morning,” he turned pale and was evidently scared to death. After this he only appeared in the village street guarded on either side by a female Snow—usually Ada and her mother, though occasionally Bertha served as escort instead of the latter. The elder Snows, in spite of this apparent security, were in a state of constant nervous tension over Mr. Sutton’s attention to Ada; he had not “spoken” yet, but it had begun to be felt severely of late that he ought to speak. Whenever Ada came into the house, her face was eagerly scanned by both mother and sister to see from its look if it bore any trace of the fateful words having been uttered. Everyone knew, though how no one could tell, that that bold thing, Dosia Linden, had tried to get him once, and failed.
The thing that had unaccountably stirred her most since her arrival was an unexpected meeting with Bailey Girard. Dosia, with Zaidee and Redge held by either hand and pressing close to her as they walked merrily along, suddenly came upon a gray-clad figure emerging from the post-office; he seemed to make an instinctive movement as if to draw back, that sent the swift color to her cheeks and then turned them white. Were all the men in the place trying to avoid her? Dosia thought, with bitter humor; but, if it were so, he instantly recovered himself, and came forward, hat in hand, with a quick access of bright courtesy, a punctilious warmth of manner. He walked along with her a few paces as he talked, lifting Zaidee over a flooded crossing, before going once more on his way. He was nothing to Dosia, the stranger who had killed her ideal, yet all day it was as if his image were photographed in the colors of life upon the retina of her eye; she could not push it away, try as she might.
Of Lawson Dosia had heard only such vague rumors as had sifted through the letters written by Lois; he had been reported as going on in his old way in the mining-camps, drifting from one to another. She heard nothing more now. He was the only one who had really loved her up here, except Lois, who loved her now. Dosia had slipped into her now position of sister and helper as if she had always filled it. She was not an outsider any more; she belonged.
After this he only appeared in the village street
guarded on either side by a female Snow
As she sat bending over Lois now, her attitude was instinct with something high-mindedly lovely. The Dosia who had only wanted to be loved, now felt—after a year of trial and conflict with death—that she only wanted, and with the same youthful intensity, to be very good, even though it seemed sometimes to that same youthfulness a strange and tragic thing that it should be all she wanted. The mysterious, fathomless depression of youth, as of something akin to unknown primal depths of loneliness, sometimes laid its chill hand on her heart; but when Dosia “said her prayers,” she got, child-fashion, very near to a Someone who brought her an intimate, tender comfort of resurrection and of life.