As they left the garden a dusky face peered out of some thick shrubbery and looked cautiously around. Then Jeff appeared and attributed to the scene just described a very different meaning from its real significance. CHAPTER XXV THE OLD HOME IN DANGER--GREGORY RETRIEVES HIMSELF Gregory made desperate efforts to keep up at the supper-table, but could not prevent slight evidences of physical pain, which Annie silently noticed. After tea he hoped to escape to his room, for he could not endure to show even his physical weakness so soon again. On the contrary, he was longing intensely for an opportunity to manifest a little strength of some kind. After his recent interview he felt that he could even bear one of his nervous headaches alone. But as he was about to excuse himself, Annie interrupted, saying, "Now, Mr. Gregory, that is not according to agreement. Do you suppose I cannot see that you are half beside yourself with one of your old headaches? Was I such a poor physician the last time that you seek to escape me now? Come back to the parlor. I will not go out to church this evening, but devote myself to you." "Miss Walton," he replied, in a low tone, "when can I make any return for all your kindness? I must seem weakness itself in every respect, and I dread to appear to you always in that light." "Your pride needs bringing down, sir; see how towering it is. Here you would go off by yourself, and endure a useless martyrdom all night perhaps, when by a few simple remedies I can relieve you, or at least help you forget the pain. I have not the slightest objection to your being a martyr, but I want some good to come out of it." "But I shall spoil your evening." "Certainly you will, if I think of you groaning up there by yourself, while I am singing, perhaps: "'I love to steal awhile away From every cumbering care!'" "Then I'm a cumbering care!" "Whether you are or not, I'm not going to steal away from you to-night. Come, do as I bid you." He was only too glad to submit to her delicious tyranny. She wheeled the lounge up to the fire, and placed her chair beside it, while the rest of the family, seeing that he had his old malady, went to the sitting-room. "I have great pride in my nursing powers," she continued, in her cheery way. "Now, if I were a man, I'd certainly be a doctor." "Thank Heaven you are not!" he said, with a devout earnestness that quite startled her. "What? A doctor?" she asked, quickly. "Yes--no; I mean a man, and doctor too." "I see no reason why you should show such bitter opposition to my being a man or a doctor either. Why should you?" "O--well--I think you are just right as a woman. You make me believe in the doctrine of election, for it seems to me that you were destined from all eternity to be just what you are." "What a strange, unfathomable doctrine that is!" said Annie, softly and musingly. "It's nothing but mystery all around us," he replied, wearily and dejectedly.