He suspected the minister, and was hot with jealousy.
His own friendship with Lydia seemed to have suffered a blight after
that one confidential talk of theirs, in which she had afforded him a
glimpse of her sorrowful past. She had not alluded to the subject a
second time; and, somehow, he had not been able to get behind the
defenses of her smiling cheerfulness. Always she was with her father,
it seemed; and the old man, garrulous enough when alone, was
invariably silent and moody in his daughter's company. One might
almost have said he hated her, from the sneering impatient looks he
cast at her from time to time. As for Lydia, she was all love and
brooding tenderness for the man who had suffered so long and
terribly.
"He'll be better after a while," she constantly excused him. "He
needs peace and quiet and home to restore him to himself."
"You want to look out for him," Jim had ventured to warn the girl,
when the two were alone together for a moment.
"Do you mean father?" Lydia asked. "What else should I do? It is all
I live for--just to look out for father."
Had she been a martyr bound to the stake, the faggots piled about her
slim body, her face might have worn just that expression of high
resignation and contempt for danger and suffering.
The young man walked slowly on. He wanted time to think. Besides--he
glanced down with a quick frown of annoyance at his mud-splashed
clothing--he certainly cut a queer figure for a call.
Some one was standing on the doorstep talking to Fanny, as he
approached his own home.
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