Oh yes, he knew. He knew of the shattered wreck of her woman's heart, and it maddened him to think that the cause of it lay at his door. More than this, the black, haunting shadow of memory left him no peace. It was with him at all times, now jeering and mocking, now threatening him. But his own remorse he felt he could bear. He was a fighter; he could battle with self as with any other foe. But, for Monica, his love drove him to a desperation which sometimes threatened to overwhelm him.
He closed the door behind him, and hurried toward the entrance hall. As he reached it he saw the figure of Phyllis Raysun ascending the stairs. He promptly called to her.
"Tell me," he cried. "Well, child? What is Dr. Fraser's report?"
The girl turned, and almost reluctantly descended the stairs.
Monica's appeal to her to come to her had been irresistible to the heart of the sympathetic girl. The appeal had been conveyed to her by Hendrie himself, the man whom she believed she hated as a monster of cruelty. She had listened to him, and something in the manner in which he had urged her, promising that the work of her farm should go forward during her absence by his own men, and that her mother should lack for no comfort that money could purchase, gave her an insight into a nature that began at once to interest her, in spite of her definitely formed opinions of him. The man certainly puzzled her young, but, for a girl of her upbringing, wide understanding.
Nor had her stay at Deep Willows lessened her interest.
Now she looked at him with unsmiling eyes.
"The doctor's just gone right into Everton for special physic," she said.
"Yes, yes. But—his report?"
Phyllis's gaze wandered to the front door, out of which the doctor had just passed.