[pg 029] friend's house, then he considered the possible brother, and that the girl herself might resent it, and he kept on. The western sky was putting on wonderful tints of cowslip and rose deepening into violet. He began considering his own future again, relegating the girl to the background. He must be nearing Alton, he thought. After a three-mile stretch of farming country, he saw houses again. Lights were gleaming out in the windows. He heard wheels, and the regular trot of a horse behind him, then a mud-bespattered buggy passed him, a shabby buggy, but a strongly built one. The team of horses was going at a good clip. James stood on one side, but the team and buggy had no sooner passed than he heard a whoa! and a man's face peered around the buggy wing, not at James, but at his medicine-case. James could just discern the face, bearded and shadowy in the gathering gloom. Then a voice came. It shouted, one word, the expressive patois of the countryside, that word which may be at once a question and a salute, may express almost any emotion. "Halloo!" said the voice.
This halloo involved a question, or so James understood it. He quickened his [pg 030] pace, and came alongside the buggy. The face, more distinct now, surveyed him, its owner leaning out over the side of the buggy. "Who are you? Where are you bound?"
James answered the latter question. "I am going to Alton."
"To Doctor Gordon's?"
"Yes."
"Then you are Doctor Elliot?"
"Yes."
"Get in."
James climbed into the buggy. The other man took up the reins, and the horse resumed his quick trot.
"You didn't come by train?" remarked the man.
"No. You are Doctor Gordon, I suppose?"
"Yes, I am. Why the devil did you walk?"
"To save my money," replied James, laughing. He realized nothing to be ashamed of in his reply.
"But I thought your father was well-to-do."
"Yes, he is, but we don't ride when it costs money and we can walk. I knew if I got to Alton by night, it would be soon enough. I like to walk." James said that last rather [pg 031] defiantly. He began to realize a certain amazement on the other man's part which might amount to an imputation upon his father. "I have plenty of money in my pocket," he added, "but I wanted the walk."
Doctor Gordon laughed. "Oh, well, a walk of twenty-five miles is nothing to a young fellow like you, of course," he said. "I can understand that you may like to stretch your legs. But you'll have to drive if you are ever going to get anywhere when you begin practice with me."
"I suppose you have calls for miles around?"
"Rather." Doctor Gordon sighed. "It's a dog's life. I suppose you haven't got that through your head yet?"
"I think it is a glorious profession," returned James, with his haughty young enthusiasm.
"I wasn't talking about the profession," said the doctor; "I was talking of the man who has to grind his way through it. It's a dog's life. Neither your body nor your soul are your own. Oh, well, maybe you'll like it."
"You seem to," remarked James rather pugnaciously.
[pg 032]
"I? What can I do, young man, but stick to it whether I like it or not? What would they do? Yes, I suppose I am fool enough to like a dog's life, or rather to be unwilling to leave it. No money could induce me anyhow. I suppose you know there is not much money in it?"
James said that he had not supposed a fortune was to be made in a country practice.
"The last bill any of them will pay is the doctor's," said Doctor Gordon. Then he added with a laugh, "especially when the doctor is myself. They have to pay a specialist from New York, but I wait until they are underground, and the relatives, I find, stick faster to the monetary remains than the bark to a tree. If I hadn't a little private fortune, and my—sister a little of her own, I expect we should starve."
James noticed with a little surprise the doctor's hesitation before he spoke of his sister. It seemed then that he was not married. Somehow, James had thought of him as married as a matter of course.
Doctor Gordon hastened to explain, as if divining the other's attitude. "I dare say you don't know anything about my family relations," said he. "My widowed sister, [pg 033] Mrs. Ewing, keeps house for me. I live with her and her daughter. I think you will like them both, and I think they will like you, though I'll be hanged if I have grasped anything of you so far but your medicine-case and your voice. Your voice is all right. You give yourself away by it, and I always like that."
James straightened himself a little. There was something bantering in the other's tone. It made him feel young, and he resented being made to feel young. He himself at that time felt older than he ever would feel again. He realized that he was not being properly estimated. "If," said he, with some heat, "a patient can make out anything by my voice as to what I think, I miss my guess."
"I dare say not," said Doctor Gordon, and his own voice was as if he put the matter aside.
He spoke to the horse, whose trot quickened, and they went on in silence.
At last James began to feel rather ashamed of himself. He unstiffened. "I had quite an exciting and curious experience after I left Stanbridge," said he.
"Did you?" said the other in an absent voice.
[pg 034]
James went on to relate the matter in detail. His companion turned an intent face upon him as he proceeded. "How far back was it?" he asked, and his tone was noticeably agitated.
"Just after I left the last house in Stanbridge. We went on together to Westover. She mentioned something about going to see a friend there. I think Lipton was the name, and she left me suddenly."
"What was the girl like?"
"Small and slight, and very pretty."
"Dressed in brown?"
"Yes."
"How did the man look?" Doctor Gordon's voice fairly alarmed the young man.
"I hardly can say. I saw him distinctly, but only for a second. The impression he gave me was of a middle-aged man, although he looked young."
"Good-looking?"
"My God, no!" said James, as the man's face seemed to loom up before him again. "He looked like the devil."
"A man may look like the devil, and yet be distinctly handsome."
"Well, I suppose he was; but give me the homeliest face on earth rather than a face [pg 035] like that man's, if I must needs have anything to do with him." The young fellow's voice broke. He was very young. He caught the other man by his rough coat sleeve. "See here, Doctor Gordon," said he, "my profession is to save life. That is the main end of it but, but—I don't honestly know what I should think right, if I were asked to save that man's life."
"Was he well dressed?"
"More than well dressed, richly, a fur-lined
