his secret.

His greatest comfort was in his visits to Martha. He always dropped in
to see her when he made his rounds in the neighborhood; sometimes every
day, sometimes once a week, depending on his patients and their
condition--visits which were always prolonged when a letter came from
either of the girls, for at first Lucy wrote to the old nurse as often
as did Jane. Apart from this the doctor loved the patient caretaker,
both for her loyalty and for her gentleness. And she loved him in
return; clinging to him as an older woman clings to a strong man,
following his advice (he never gave orders) to the minutest detail when
something in the management or care of house or grounds exceeded her
grasp. Consulting him, too, and this at Jane's special
request--regarding any financial complications which needed prompt
attention, and which, but for his services, might have required Jane's
immediate return to disentangle. She loved, too, to talk of Lucy and of
Miss Jane's goodness to her bairn, saying she had been both a sister
and a mother to her, to which the doctor would invariably add some
tribute of his own which only bound the friendship the closer.

His main relief, however, lay in his work, and in this he became each
day more engrossed. He seemed never to be out of his gig unless at the
bedside of some patient. So long and wearing had the routes
become--often beyond Barnegat and as far as Westfield--that the sorrel
gave out, and he was obliged to add another horse to his stable. His
patients saw the weary look in his eyes--as of one who had often looked
on sorrow--and thought it was the hard work and anxiety over them that
had caused it. But the old nurse knew better.

"His heart's breakin' for love of her," she would say to Meg, looking
down into his sleepy eyes--she cuddled him more than ever these
days--"and I don't wonder. God knows how it'll all end."

Jane wrote to him but seldom; only half a dozen letters in all during
the first year of her absence among them one to tell him of their safe
arrival, another to thank him for his kindness to Martha, and a third
to acknowledge the receipt of a letter of introduction to a student
friend of his who was now a prominent physician in Paris, and who might
be useful in case either of them fell ill. He had written to his friend
at the same time, giving the address of the two girls, but the
physician had answered that he had called at the street and number, but
no one kne