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Tears, indeed, were out of all harmony with his experience of Olive Keltridge. The doctor's reply came crisply. "Apparently, she'd cried them in again." Then once more he bent above the couch where Opdyke lay. "Hang on to the tail of every sort of hope, Reed," he bade him cheerily. "It's not an especially amusing occupation; but it is about the only thing for us to do at present.
It was merely to remind her parent that something was still expected of him, before he drifted off again into an absent-minded study of the medical journal clutched between his fists. Olive Keltridge would have been the last person in the world to dissent from the general adoration of her father. He was all in all to her, as she to him.
However, no amount of professional contentment can quite atone for the strain of many sleepless nights; and, more than once that summer, Doctor Keltridge had been strongly tempted to call a halt in the whole undertaking. Then, at the last minute, he had stayed his prohibition. Opdyke, in all surety, was working far beyond his strength.
Uncertainty like that is bound to tell on any man; and, throughout it all, Olive Keltridge never once had failed him. That Opdyke was renewing, after his limited fashion, many of his old associations was a fact evident to the whole town. The knowledge that he was lowering his year-long barricade, as a matter of course, brought to his door a horde of visitors bound to be more or less unwelcome.
At least I mean " The curate, confounded by the hideous mental picture that he had evoked, was floundering helplessly. "Exactly," Olive assented once more. The curate rallied. "And yet, they all adore him," he concluded. "That is the strange thing about Mr. Brenton, Miss Keltridge.
The professor, though, knew his old friend better, yet he forebore to put a question. He knew that, when Doctor Keltridge was quite ready, he was wont to speak; but not before. Doctor Keltridge's cigar, smoked in Reed's room, lasted long, that night; above it, the doctor was silent, indolent, and yet alert to every change in the face before him.
For a little while, the professor smoked in silence. "Can't you warn him unofficially, Keltridge?" he asked then. "That he is disgracing the department?" "No. That he is wrecking his final chance to amount to anything that's practical? That, if he holds on here, he must keep within some sort of limits in the things he says?
She knew quite well that the question would stamp her once and for all as a careless hostess. Nevertheless, she asked it, as her only means of deflecting the talk from Brenton. The curate gave a soft and patient sigh. "No sugar, Miss Keltridge," he corrected her gently; "and, if you don't mind, please not quite so much lemon. There!" He lifted his hand appealingly.
"Saint Peter's is a dear old church, mellow enough in its traditions to make up for its hopelessly new architecture; and I am sure you'll love this sleepy town." But it was plain to her that Brenton, quite oblivious to her words, was pursuing his own train of thought. Out of it he spoke. "My mother died, two years ago, Miss Keltridge." Her reply came promptly.
Then, of a sudden, he returned to his original charge. "Opdyke, why don't you think a little more about Olive Keltridge?" he demanded. "Because I think quite enough of her, as it is," Reed answered. "Of her, but not about her," Dolph said moodily. "Of course, if I could get her for my own wife, I wouldn't be giving you this advice. I've proved I can't, though " Reed interrupted.
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