"Is it—is everything just the same?" she asked, nervously.
"As when I was house surgeon there, do you mean? I don't know; I have been away from Carlisle a good many years. The hospital work got humdrum somehow, and I had a berth offered me as army surgeon in Bombay; and as Alice was married, and my mother was dead, I thought I might as well try my luck. I got tired of it though."
"Alice married!"; with a quick flush of interest. They were sitting at Miss Cosie's tea-table now. Mr. Stewart was by his hostess, but he had found room for his old acquaintance beside him.
"You can't think how pleasant it is to meet an old friend in a strange place," he had observed confidentially to Miss Cosie, and the little woman had nodded and smiled delightedly.
"Yes, Alice is married; pretty girls will sometimes," with the humorous sparkle in his eyes that she remembered so well. "She married a clergyman in Lincolnshire, and has two fine boys of whom she is very proud; I have just been staying with them in their pleasant vicarage. By-the-bye, she asked after you."
"After me?" with another rush of sensitive color that made her look years younger.
"Yes; she asked if I had seen you, but I could not satisfy her on that point. Don't you think it was a shabby trick, Miss Faith, vanishing from Carlisle as you did, and never coming back? I always meant to ask you that question if we ever met again."
"I hoped to come back; I never meant to leave like that," she returned in such a low voice that Dr. Stewart had some trouble to hear her. "It was my sister's accident. You remember that I told you when I wished your mother and Alice good-bye."
"Yes; but I trusted that it was only a temporary affair, and that you might soon have been set free."
"I am not free yet," in a sad voice that went far to explain to Dr. Stewart the meaning of the worn, patient face and set lines.