Part 19

“Some men can't bear to be around when a woman's up to that sort of foolishness,” said the widow, with a faint attempt at a smile, but a return of her paleness.

“Hadn't you better lie down again?” said the doctor solicitously.

“I'm all right now,” returned Mrs. MacGlowrie, struggling to her feet; “Morvin will look after me till the shakiness goes. But it was mighty touching and neighborly to come in, Doctor,” she continued, succeeding at last in bringing up a faint but adorable smile, which stirred Blair's pulses. “If I were my own dog--you couldn't have treated me better!”

With no further excuse for staying longer, Blair was obliged to depart--yet reluctantly, both as lover and physician. He was by no means satisfied with her condition. He called to inquire the next day--but she was engaged and sent word to say she was “better.”

In the excitement attending the advent of the new preacher the slight illness of the charming widow was forgotten. He had taken the settlement by storm. His first sermon at Laurel Spring exceeded even the extravagant reputation that had preceded him. Known as the “Inspired Cowboy,” a common unlettered frontiersman, he was said to have developed wonderful powers of exhortatory eloquence among the Indians, and scarcely less savage border communities where he had lived, half outcast, half missionary. He had just come up from the Southern agricultural districts, where he had been, despite his rude antecedents, singularly effective with women and young people. The moody dyspeptics and lazy rustics of Laurel Spring were stirred as with a new patent medicine. Dr. Blair went to the first “revival” meeting. Without undervaluing the man's influence, he was instinctively repelled by his appearance and methods. The young physician's trained powers of observation not only saw an overwrought emotionalism in the speaker's eloquence, but detected the ring of insincerity in his more lucid speech and acts. Nevertheless, the hysteria of the preacher was communicated to the congregation, who wept and shouted with him. Tired and discontented housewives found their vague sorrows and vaguer longings were only the result of their “unregenerate” state; the lazy country youths felt that the frustration of their small ambitions lay in their not being “convicted of sin.” The mourners' bench was crowded with wildly emulating sinners. Dr. Blair turned away with mingled feelings of amusement and contempt. At the door Jim Slocum tapped him on the shoulder: “Fetches the wimmin folk every time, don't he, Doctor?” said Jim.

“So it seems,” said Blair dryly.

“You're one o' them scientific fellers that look inter things--what do YOU allow it is?”

The young doctor restrained the crushing answer that rose to his lips. He had learned caution in that neighborhood. “I couldn't say,” he said indifferently.

“'Tain't no religion,” said Slocum emphatically; “it's jest pure fas'nation. Did ye look at his eye? It's like a rattlesnake's, and them wimmin are like birds. They're frightened of him--but they hev to do jest what he 'wills' 'em. That's how he skeert the widder the other day.”

The doctor was alert and on fire at once. “Scared the widow?” he repeated indignantly.

“Yes. You know how she swooned away. Well, sir, me and that preacher, Brown, was the only one in that dinin' room at the time. The widder opened the door behind me and sorter peeked in, and that thar preacher give a start and looked up; and then, that sort of queer light come in his eyes, and she shut the door, and kinder fluttered and flopped down in the passage outside, like a bird! And he crawled away like a snake, and never said a word! My belief is that either he hadn't time to turn on the hull influence, or else she, bein' smart, got the door shut betwixt her and it in time! Otherwise, sure as you're born, she'd hev been floppin' and crawlin' and sobbin' arter him--jist like them critters we've left.”

“Better not let the brethren hear you talk like that, or they'll lynch you,” said the doctor, with a laugh. “Mrs. MacGlowrie simply had an attack of faintness from some overexertion, that's all.”

Nevertheless, he was uneasy as he walked away. Mrs. MacGlowrie had evidently received a shock which was still unexplained, and, in spite of Slocum's exaggerated fancy, there might be some foundation in his story. He did not share the man's superstition, although he was not a skeptic regarding magnetism. Yet even then, the widow's action was one of repulsion, and as long as she was strong enough not to come to these meetings, she was not in danger. A day or two later, as he was passing the garden of the hotel on horseback, he saw her lithe, graceful, languid figure bending over one of her favorite flower beds. The high fence partially concealed him from view, and she evidently believed herself alone. Perhaps that was why she suddenly raised herself from her task, put back her straying hair with a weary, abstracted look, remained for a moment quite still staring at the vacant sky, and then, with a little catching of her breath, resumed her occupation in a dull, mechanical way. In that brief glimpse of her charming face, Blair was shocked at the change; she was pale, the corners of her pretty mouth were drawn, there were deeper shades in the orbits of her eyes, and in spite of her broad garden hat with its blue ribbon, her light flowered frock and frilled apron, she looked as he fancied she might have looked in the first crushing grief of her widowhood. Yet he would have passed on, respecting her privacy of sorrow, had not her little spaniel detected him with her keener senses. And Fluffy being truthful--as dogs are--and recognizing a dear friend in the intruder, barked joyously.

The widow looked up, her eyes met Blair's, and she reddened. But he was too acute a lover to misinterpret what he knew, alas! was only confusion at her abstraction being discovered. Nevertheless, there was something else in her brown eyes he had never seen before. A momentary lighting up of RELIEF--of even hopefulness--in his presence. It was enough for Blair; he shook off his old shyness like the dust of his ride, and galloped around to the front door.

But she met him in the hall with only her usual languid good humor. Nevertheless, Blair was not abashed.

“I can't put you in splints and plaster like Fluffy, Mrs. MacGlowrie,” he said, “but I can forbid you to go into the garden unless you're looking better. It's a positive reflection on my professional skill, and Laurel Spring will be shocked, and hold me responsible.”

Mrs. MacGlowrie had recovered enough of her old spirit to reply that she thought Laurel Spring could be in better business than looking at her over her garden fence.

“But your dog, who knows you're not well, and doesn't think me quite a fool, had the good sense to call me. You heard him.”

But the widow protested that she was as strong as a horse, and that Fluffy was like all puppies, conceited to the last degree.

“Well,” said Blair cheerfully, “suppose I admit you are all right, physically, you'll confess you have some trouble on your mind, won't you? If I can't make you SHOW me your tongue, you'll let me hear you USE it to tell me what worries you. If,” he added more earnestly, “you won't confide in your physician--you will perhaps--to--to--a--FRIEND.”

But Mrs. MacGlowrie, evading his earnest eyes as well as his appeal, was wondering what good it would do either a doctor, or--a--a--she herself seemed to hesitate over the word--“a FRIEND, to hear the worriments of a silly, nervous old thing--who had only stuck a little too closely to her business.”

“You are neither nervous nor old, Mrs. MacGlowrie,” said the doctor promptly, “though I begin to think you HAVE been too closely confined here. You want more diversion, or--excitement. You might even go to hear this preacher”--he stopped, for the word had slipped from his mouth unawares.

But a swift look of scorn swept her pale face. “And you'd like me to follow those skinny old frumps and leggy, limp chits, that slobber and cry over that man!” she said contemptuously. “No! I reckon I only want a change--and I'll go away, or get out of this for a while.”

The poor doctor had not thought of this possible alternative. His heart sank, but he was brave. “Yes, perhaps you are right,” he said sadly, “though it would be a dreadful loss--to Laurel Spring--to us all--if you went.”

“Do I look so VERY bad, doctor?” she said, with a half-mischievous, half-pathetic smile.

The doctor thought her upturned face very adorable, but restrained his feelings heroically, and contented himself with replying to the pathetic half of her smile. “You look as if you had been suffering,” he said gravely, “and I never saw you look so before. You seem as if you had experienced some great shock. Do you know,” he went on, in a lower tone and with a half-embarrassed smile, “that when I saw you just now in the garden, you looked as I imagined you might have looked in the first days of your widowhood--when your husband's death was fresh in your heart.”

A strange expression crossed her face. Her eyelids dropped instantly, and with both hands she caught up her frilled apron as if to meet them and covered her face. A little shudder seemed to pass over her shoulders, and then a cry that ended in an uncontrollable and half-hysterical laugh followed from the depths of that apron, until shaking her sides, and with her head still enveloped in its covering, she fairly ran into the inner room and closed the door behind her.

Amazed, shocked, and at first indignant, Dr. Blair remained fixed to the spot. Then his indignation gave way to a burning mortification as he recalled his speech. He had made a frightful faux pas! He had been fool enough to try to recall the most sacred memories of that dead husband he was trying to succeed--and her quick woman's wit had detected his ridiculous stupidity. Her laugh was hysterical--but that was only natural in her mixed emotions. He mounted his horse in confusion and rode away.