He straightened his shoulders. "I'm going to ask you to stay here," he said, "instead of going to the city. I haven't any real right to keep you, for I'm not legally your guardian, but I promised your mother to look after you. I can find work for you. We need some one at the sanatorium to look after the office——"
For a moment she set her will against his. "But I'd rather go to the city."
He put his strong hands on her shoulders. "Little child, look at me," he said, and when she flashed up at him a startled glance, he went on, gently, "Your mother wanted me to take care of you—to keep you from harm. In the city you'll be too far away. I want you to stay here. Will you?"
And presently she whispered, "I will stay."
Outside the rain was rushing and the wind was blowing, and plain little Miss Matthews battled with the storm. Miss Matthews, who, every day in the year, taught a class of tumultuous children, and whose life dealt always with the commonplace. And it was plain little Miss Matthews who, having weathered the storm and climbed the winding stairs, came in, rain-coated and soft-hatted, to find by the fire the doctor drawing on his gloves and Bettina hovering about him like a gold-tipped butterfly.
"It's a dreadful storm," said Miss Matthews, superfluously, as Bettina went to get boiling water. "There's a young man down-stairs who wants to speak to you, Dr. Blake. He said that he couldn't find you at the sanatorium. He saw your car in front of the house and knew you were here. But the bell wouldn't ring, and so he waited. I told him the bell was broken and that you'd come down at once. He's hurt his hand."
"They would have fixed him up at the sanatorium."
"He said he wanted you, and nobody else, and that he came into the hall because he was like a pussy cat and hated the rain. He is a queer looking creature in a leather cap and leather leggins."
The doctor gave an amused laugh. "That's Justin Ford," he said; "the pussy-cat speech sounds like him, and he wears the leather costume when he flies."
Bettina, coming back with fresh tea for Miss Matthews, asked, "How does he fly?"