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To Miss Williams the feeble light went with him. The appalled guests attacked their food with feverish energy. Dr. Webster stared stupidly at the door; then his food gave out the sound of ore in a crusher. He did not speak for some time. When he did he ignored the subject of young Strowbridge.
She was, in truth, anxiously awaiting the moment when Dr. Webster should see fit to give his attention to the stranger. He laughed outright. "Why, what makes you so afraid of him? He doesn't beat you, does he?" "It isn't that. It's the personality of the man, added to force of habit." "Well, Mr. Strowbridge," cried Dr. Webster, suddenly addressing the youth, "what are you doing for this world?
They sauntered between the now well-kept lawns and flower-beds and entered a long avenue of fig-trees. The purple fruit hung abundantly among the large green leaves. Miss Williams opened one of the figs and showed Strowbridge the red luscious pith. "You don't have these over there." "We don't. Are they good to eat this way?" She held one of the oval halves to his mouth. "Eat!" she said.
"After all, it only makes a little difference to them that they got nothing," thought the companion, with a sigh. A young man stepped from one of the long windows of the Holt mansion and came down the lawn. Miss Williams recognized Strowbridge. She had not seen him for several weeks; but he had had his part in her bitter moments, and her heart beat at sight of him to-day.
Oh, I must try as a Christian woman to tear this feeling from my heart." She wrote off a check and directed it to her pastor, then rang for the trained nurse her physician had imported from New York, and ordered her to steam and massage her face and rub her old body with spirits of wine and unguents. Strowbridge acquired the habit of dropping in on Miss Williams at all hours.
Strowbridge glanced about in search of Miss Williams. She was not in the room. He sauntered out to the garden and saw her coming from the dairy. She wore a black alpaca frock and a dark apron. Her face was weary and sad. "Could any one look more hopeless!" he thought. "The selfish old curmudgeon, not to leave her independent! How her face can light up! She looks almost young."
Once in every week Abby vowed she would leave, but habit was too strong. Once in every week Miss Webster vowed she would turn the companion out, but dependence on the younger woman had grown into the fibres of her old being. Strowbridge returned the following summer. Almost immediately he called on Miss Williams.
When she became suspect, and before Doc Strowbridge could get hold of her, her brother spirited her away to some hiding-place. Lyte was Sheriff of Kona, and it was his business to find her. "We were all over at Hilo that night, in Ned Austin's. Stephen Kaluna was there when we came in, by himself, in his cups, and quarrelsome. Lyte was laughing over some joke that huge, happy laugh of a giant boy.
Think that would make a fortune in a new country? Got any money of your own?" "My father, since you ask me, is a rich man as well as a gentleman," said Strowbridge, with the expression of half-frightened anger of the righteously indignant, who knows that he has not the advantages of cool wit and scathing repartee, and, in consequence, may lose his head.
Miss Webster being prostrated, the companion did the honors. The dwellers on the lake occupied the post of honor at the head of the room, just beyond the expensive casket. Their faces were studies. After Miss Williams had exchanged a word with each, Strowbridge stepped forward and bent to her ear.
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