American fiction -- 19th century; Detective and mystery stories
He may have answered this appeal by some touch or sympathetic move, but
if he did, the listener was not near enough to catch it. There was a
rustling where they stood and in another instant the bare head of the
young girl was visible again in the moonlight.
“I think I will be going home,” said she, and turned towards the
gateway. The doctor followed her and together they left the cemetery and
entered the high-road. When the sound of their voices had died away in
the distance, a deep and heavy shadow separated itself from the side of
the house near the window and resolving itself again into the image of
the man through whose ears we have listened to the broken dialogue we
have endeavored to transcribe, took up its stand before the still
lighted window and for several minutes studied the peculiar interior
most diligently. Then it drew off, and sliding down the path which
followed the side of the house, emerged upon the road and took its own
course to the village.
Something which he did not see and something which he did not hear, took
place at the other end of the town before a cheerfully lighted mansion.
Dr. Izard and Polly had traversed the length of the street, and had
nearly reached the cottage in which she was at present living, when the
former felt the little hand now thrust confidingly into his arm, flutter
and shift a trifle. As the girl had regained her spirits and was now
chatting in quite a merry way upon indifferent topics, he looked up to
see what it was that had affected her, and saw nothing save the lights
of the Unwin place and a figure which must have been that of young Unwin
sitting on the shadowy veranda. As he had reasons of his own for not
liking to pass this house, he stopped and glanced at the young girl
inquiringly. She had ceased speaking and her head was hanging so low
that the curls dropped against her cheek, hiding her eyes and the
expression of her mouth.
“I think,” she whispered, “if you don’t mind, that I will walk on the
other side of you. It is very late for me to be out, even with you, and
Clarke——”
The doctor, drawing in his breath, turned his full face on her and stood
so long gazing into her drooping countenance that she felt frightened
and attempted to move on. Instantly he responded to her wish and they
passed the house with quick and agitated steps, but when the shadows of
the next block had absorbed them, they both paused as it were
simultaneously, and the doctor said with something more than his usual
feeling in his thin, fine voice, “Do you care for Clarke Unwin, little
one?”
Her answer struck him.
“Do I care for breath, for life? He has been both to me ever since I
could remember anything. And now he cares for me.”
The doctor, lost in some overwhelming dream or thought, did not answer
her for several minutes. Then he suddenly lifted her face by its dainty
chin, and in a deep, controlled tone, totally different from the one he
had used a short time before, he solemnly remarked:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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