.
"My dear, foolish father," she murmured, "you don't understand
what a rest cure is. This is quite all right, quite as it should
be. Poor Wenham has been seeing too many people all his life
-- that is why we have to keep him quiet for a time. You can
skip the scenery. I suppose you got to the house at last?"
"Yes, I got there," continued her father. "You know what a
bleak-looking place it is, right on the side of a bare hill--a
square, gray stone place just the color of the hillside. Well, I
got there and walked in. There was Ted Mathers, half dressed, no
collar, with a bottle of whiskey on the table, playing some
wretched game of cards by himself. Elizabeth, what a brute that
man is!"
She shook her head.
"Go on," she said. "What about Wenham?"
"He was there in a corner, gazing out of the window. When I came
he sprang up, but when he saw who it was, he--he tried to hide.
He was afraid of me."
"Why?" she asked.
"He said that I--I reminded him of you."
"Absurd!" she murmured. "Tell me, how did he look?"
"Ill, wretched, paler and thinner than ever, and wilder looking."
"What did Mathers say about him?" she demanded.
"What could he? He told me that he cried all day and begged to
be taken back to America."
"No one goes near the place, I suppose?" she asked.
"Not a soul. A man comes from the village to sell things once a
week. Mathers knows when to expect him and takes care that
Wenham is not around.
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