A light flamed in the boy's face; his eyes widened as he stared incredulously at the doctor.
"I say," he said, all but weeping for joy, "that's a good joke on me. Is that what you're drivin' at, doc? Marry her! Say, I'd marry Nettie Day this blessed minute if she'd have me!"
"Very good, lad. You'll have your chance. I've got her now at Miss Loring's. I'll go myself after the missionary, if you'll lend me a horse. Trail's not fit for a car. I'll do my best to get back first thing in the morning. Meanwhile, you'll have a chance to get your house in shape. You'll want it to shine for that wife and baby of yours."
"That wi—and— Say, what's the joke, anyway?"
The doctor was now in better humor. His errand had been highly successful, and after all a lad was only a lad, and he liked young Cyril Stanley. There was good stuff in Cyril—good Scotch stuff.
Cyril, taking the doctor's remark for one of the coarse jokes commonly cracked in that countryside at the time of a wedding, laughed half-heartedly, but the words stuck queerly in his mind. To change the subject, he said:
"Doc, what do you suppose ever possessed Nettie to treat me as she did? When I got back from Barstairs—let me see, that was last October—no, a bit before that—What does she do but run away from me, and when I chased after her, she turned me down dead cold. Said she'd changed—wasn't the same, and a—and—she simply sent me packing—made me think someone'd cut me out with her and——"
Cyril broke off. The memory of that time was still an open wound in his mind.
"I don't blame her a bit," blustered the doctor, in assumed anger. "If it wasn't for that baby now, she'd do better to send you packing altogether. What's the matter with you young people today? Can't you hold back like respectable folk? Don't you realize that even though you marry the gell now, she'll always be branded with the shame of this thing; and it's not only the lass to be considered, there's the innocent child—the baby to consider."
"That's the third or fourth time that you've said that word. What do you mean, anyway? What baby? Whose?"