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man?" asked Holmes, carelessly.
The other watched him keenly.
"She is coming for five years. Margaret Howth."
He patted the dog with the same hard, unmoved touch.
"It is a religious duty with her. Besides, she must do something. They have been almost starving since the mill was burnt."
Holmes's face was bent; he could not see it. When he looked up, Knowles thought it more rigid, immovable than before.
When Knowles was going away, Holmes said to him,--
"When does Margaret Howth go into that devils' den?"
"The House? On New-Year's." The scorn in him was too savage to be silent. "You will have fulfilled your design by that time,--of marriage?"
Holmes was leaning on the mantel-shelf; his very lips were pale.
"Yes, I shall, I shall,"--in his low, hard tone.
Some sudden dream of warmth and beauty flashed before his gray eyes, lighting them as Knowles never had seen before.
"Miss Herne is beautiful,--let me congratulate you in Western fashion."
The old man did not hide his sneer.
Holmes bowed.
"I thank you, for her."
Lois held the candle to light the Doctor out of the long passages.
"Yoh hevn't seen Barney out 't Mr. Howth's, Doctor? He's ther' now."
"No. When shall you have done waiting on this--man, Lois? God help you, child!"
Lois's quick instinct answered,--
"He's very kind. He's like a woman fur kindness to such as me. When I come to die, I'd like eyes such as his to look at, tender, pitiful."
"Women are fools alike," grumbled the Doctor. "Never mind. 'When you come to die?' What put that into your head? Look up."
The child sheltered the flaring candle with her hand.
"I've no tho't o' dyin'," she said, laughing.
There was a gray shadow about her eyes, a peaked look to the face, he never saw before, looking at her now with a physician's eyes.
"Does anything hurt you here?" touching her chest.
"It's better now. It was that night o' th' fi