"Anything I can do, Doc?" Henley swallowed a lump of emotion that had risen in his throat.
"Not a thing; but you might stay right here. Miss Dixie might—if anything happened—she might need you. She's a plucky little woman, and it might be best for her to have some sort of company. She is wrought up. She loves the boy as a mother would her own child, and yet she is calm and steady."
Henley leaned on the fence and watched the vehicle disappear in the misty moonlight which seemed to fall like a mantle from the mountain. He was resting his head on the fence when he felt a light touch on his arm. It was Dixie.
"He is sleeping," she whispered. "The doctor said it would be good for him. Oh, Alfred, it's pitiful, pitiful! I'm glad to see that you feel like you do. He loves you; he has spoken of you scores of times, and, when I told him just now that you was down here watching, he was glad. I wonder why God tears a human soul to pieces like this. If Joe is taken to-night I don't think I could ever get over it. Oh, Alfred, my heart yearns over him. At this minute I could ask for nothing better than to be allowed to work for that child all the rest of my life." Tears stood in her wonderful eyes, and her breast, under its thin covering, rose and fell tumultuously.
"You are a sweet, good girl, Dixie." Henley's voice sounded new to himself. "You are the noblest woman that ever drew the breath of life. As the Lord is my Redeemer, I'd give all I possess on earth to help you to-night."
Their eyes met in a strange gaze of wonderment. "I believe it," she said, simply, while a sad smile touched her pulsing lips. "Yes, I believe it. But I must go back."
He sat under the beechnut-tree watching the attic window till the eastern sky above the mountains began to take on a grayish cast. Now and then through the long vigil Dixie would come to the window and look down on him, only to nod knowingly and retire, as if content with his mute companionship.
It was almost dawn when the doctor came.
"I was delayed," he explained as he sprang out of his buggy; "bad case of labor—had to use instruments, but successful." He hurried to the gate without hitching his horse. "How is he?"
"I can't say, Doc—you'd better see for yourself."