"Early next month, Jim. That's the fixture." Is there a trace of cheerful reassurance in the Rector's voice? Yes—just enough to produce misgiving in Jim. It has to be stifled in its birth. Jim treads bravely over the cinder-traps—the fires smouldering underground. "Ye see, gentlemen," he says, "it's this way: If my lassie comes back afore September, there'll maybe be a spell of sunshiny weather fit for a lassie to see her Daddy a mile down the road. Belike, too, stop a little to bear him company, in the best o' the day. Many a September month have I known, early morning apart, to compare with the rarest days of the summer."
"They call it a summer, you know, Jim. St. Augustin's summer." So says Challis; and he is ready to supply any climatic record to please Jim. "Sometimes the thermometer has been known to stand at ninety in the shade."
Jim is greatly impressed, and very happy over this. He sees before him, in imagination, a fortnight or three weeks of matchless weather, with Lizarann beside him. His soul laughs; indeed, his lungs join chorus. "What did the doctor say again, master?" says he.
But Athelstan's face is one of concern. The doctor's report had been, alas! that the effect of the sea air would very likely begin to tell on the patient when she got back. She would, no doubt, be better when she got back to her father, about whom she was fidgety. This doctor kindly vouched for the same thing having happened several times in like cases.
Challis watched his friend as he made out the best tale he could. Do you remember Challis's first appearance in this story, and how we spoke of him as perceptive? He was that, and all sorts of little intimations constantly reached him, by mysterious telegraphies, of concurrent events—things many would miss altogether. No wonder he read between the lines of Athelstan Taylor's version of the doctor's report! No wonder!—for any but a blind man would have detected in the Rector's serious face how little he believed the well-worn forms of speech folk use to keep the hearts of others alive, in case—just this one time—a real change for the better should come, or the last new remedy should fulfil the promises of the ream of testimonials it was wrapped in when we bought it. But the Rector threw as much hope as he dared into his telling, and did well, on the whole. And Jim was satisfied for now.
A little later, when the two were starting to go back to the Rectory by a roundabout way, having left Jim attending to the demands for water of an influx of applicants, Athelstan Taylor said to Challis: "I felt quite ashamed of myself just now.... What for? Why, for talking all that stuff to Jim about poor little Lizarann! But what can one do? There's nothing to be gained by plunging the poor fellow in despair, as long as any hope remains of her outgrowing it."
"You mean there is some hope, then?"
"Some." That was all the Rector said.
"I see. But is it to be a long job?"
"Probably not—probably not. But she may live for some little time yet—with care. I don't know how much Jim knows or suspects."