"John!" cried Doctor Jim, catching the caressing hand in a fervent clasp. "God bless you! But—on my honour I have never said a word!"
"I know, Jim, I know. We've always played fair to each other. But now you can speak. And now,—you don't need to speak, either of you. Your faces speak plain enough, to the eyes of one who loves you both!"
"Is it true, Mehitable? After all these years that I've kept silence,—oh, is it true?" asked Doctor Jim, scarcely above a whisper, reaching out his hands to her longingly.
For one instant she laid hers in his. Then she withdrew them quickly, seized Doctor John's hand in both of hers, laid her cheek against it, and burst into tears.
"Oh, John, dear John," she sobbed. "How can I bear that you should be unhappy?"
Doctor John blinked, and made a little noise in his throat. Then, with a brave levity, he exclaimed:
"Tut! Tut! Don't you worry about me, either of you, now. As for you, Jim Pigeon, you Tory scoundrel, I'm getting the best of you, after all. For I stay right here and take care of her, Lord knows how long, while you go off, Lord knows where, and get yourself poked full of holes for your old King George— Eh, what, baggage? as Jim would say!" And he turned unexpectedly toward Barbara, who had been standing by the window, and peering diligently out into the blackness for the past ten minutes,—and surreptitiously wiping her eyes as well as her nose.
"Yes, indeed you do get the best of the bargain," she cheerfully and mendaciously agreed.
Two days later, in the dark before moonrise, Doctor Jim and Amos slipped away on horseback by the road to Westings Landing. And Doctor John went with them as far as the Landing, to put them into trusty hands for their night voyage down the river.