XXVII The Image Of Dread

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" Oh, Mr. Brotherson," the poor child burst out, "you must let me cry! I'm so glad to see you better and interested in all sorts of things. These are not tears of grief. I - I - but I'm forgetting what the doctor told me. You are growing excited, and I was to see that you were calm, always calm. I will take my desk away. I will write the rest in the other room, while you look at the magazines."

" But bring your letter back for me to seal. I want to see it in its envelope. Oh, Doris, you are a good little girl!"

She shook her head, and hastened to hide herself from him in the other room; and it was a long time before she came back with the letter folded and in its envelope. When she did, her face was composed and her manner natural. She had quite made up her mind what her duty was and how she was going to perform it.

"Here is the letter," said she, laying it in his outstretched hand. Then she turned her back. She knew, with a woman's unerring instinct why he wished to handle it before it went. She felt that kiss he folded away in it, in every fibre of her aroused and sympathetic heart, but the hardest part of the ordeal was over and her eyes beamed softly when she turned again to take it from his hand and affix the stamp.

"You will mail it yourself?" he asked. "I should like to have you put it into the box with your own hand."

"I will put it in to-night, after supper," she promised him.

His smile of contentment assured her that this trial of her courage and self-control was not without one blessed result. He would rest for several days in the pleasure of what he had done or thought he had done. She need not cringe before that image of Dread for two, three days at least. Meanwhile, he would grow strong in body, and she, perhaps, in spirit. Only one precaution she must take. No hint of Mr. Challoner's presence in town must reach him. He must be guarded from a knowledge of that fact as certainly as from the more serious one which lay behind it.