"No—no. Mebbe not," Doctor June commented with perfect cheerfulness. "Some folks take fresh air, and some folks like to stay shut up tight. But—'the shadow of good things to come.' I'd take that much stock if I was you, Delia."
As he laid the book back in his bag, the train was jolting across the switches beside the gas house, and the lights of Friendship were all about the track.
"Why don't you get off?" he reiterated, in his tone a descending scale of simple hospitality. "Come to our house and stop a spell. Come for tea," he added; "I happen to know we're goin' to hev hot griddle-cakes an' sausage gravy."
She shook her head sharply and in silence.
Doctor June stood for a moment meditatively looking down at her.
"There's a friend of yours at our house to-day, for all day," he observed.
"I ain't any friends," replied the girl, obstinately, "without you mean use' to be. An' I don't know if I had then, either."
"Yes. Yes, you have, Delia," said Doctor June, kindly. "He was asking about you last time he was here—kind of indirect."
"Who?" she demanded, but it was as if something within her wrung the question from her against her will.
"Abel Halsey," Doctor June told her, "Abel Halsey. Remember him?"