"Search me!" gulped Wyatt, with a shrug of his shoulders. "I had one look at her. She's got eyes like a pair of automatics. You take it from me, Doc," and Wyatt laid his unoccupied hand upon the sleeve of the minister, "if she's got anything on you, compromise and do it quick; if she ain't, fight, and fight like h——." Wyatt stopped and shot an apologetic glance around the table. "'Scuse my French," he blurted, "but you know what I mean."
"Yes," said the minister, holding his head very straight, "I realize that you do not mean to insult me."
"Insult you?" argued the Deputy, overflowing with satisfied amiability. "After coming over here to arrest you, and you givin' me a dinner like this? Pie like this? Well, I guess not. I'm bribed, Doc, that's what I am. I got to go in that room with you when you see the old lady; but I'll hold my thumbs in my ears, and I won't see a d—— there I go again." Once more Wyatt's apologetic look swept around the table.
"Mrs. Burbeck is in the study," announced the maid.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE ANGEL ADVISES
Because locomotion was not easy for her, it was to have been expected that the conferences between John Hampstead and Mrs. Burbeck, which, especially in the early days of his pastorate, had been so many, would take place in that lady's home; and they usually did. But as time went on, her own independence of spirit and increased consideration for the minister led Mrs. Burbeck frequently to prefer to come to him. To make this easy, two planks had been laid to form a simple runway to the stoop at the study door. When, therefore, the minister entered his library to-night, closely followed by Wyatt, he found that good woman waiting in the wheel chair beside his desk. The object of her call showed instantly in an expression of boundless and tender solicitude; and yet the clergyman immediately forgot himself in a conscience-stricken concern for his visitor.
"You should not have come," he exclaimed quickly, sympathy and mild reproach mingling, while a devotion like that of a son for a mother was conveyed in his tone and glance.
Truly, Mrs. Burbeck had never looked so frail. All but the faintest glow of color had gone from her cheeks; her eyes were bright, but with a luster that seemed unearthly, and her skin had a transparent, wax-like look that to the clergyman was alarmingly suggestive, as if the pale bloom of another world were upon her cheeks, which a single breath must wither.
Making these observations swiftly as his stride carried him to her, the minister, speaking in that rich baritone of melting tenderness which was one of Hampstead's most charming personal assets, concluded with: "You are not well. You are not at all well."