w, that it might not
distress us the more, who sorrowed, also.

XXVII

The DAY of The DOG

I was awakened at dawn. 'Twas by a gentle touch of the doctor's hand.
"Is it you, zur?" I asked, starting from sad dreams.

"Hush!" he whispered. "'Tis I, Davy."

I listened to the roar of the gale--my sleepy senses immediately aroused
by the noise of wind and sleet. The gathered rage was loosed, at last.

"'Tis a bitter night," I said.

"The day is breaking."

He sat down beside me, gravely silent; and he put his arm around me.

"You isn't goin'?" I pleaded.

"Yes."

I had grown to know his duty. 'Twas all plain to me. I would not have
held him from it, lest I come to love him less.

"Ay," I moaned, gripping his hand, "you're goin'!"

"Yes," he said.

We sat for a moment without speaking. The gale went whipping
past--driving madly through the breaking day: a great rush of black,
angry weather. 'Twas dim in the room. I could not see his face--but felt
his arm warm about me: and wished it might continue there, and that I
might fall asleep, serene in all that clamour, sure that I might find it
there on waking, or seek it once again, when sore need came. And I
thought, even then, that the Lord had been kind to us: in that this man
had come sweetly into our poor lives, if but for a time.

"You isn't goin' alone, is you?"

"No. Skipper Tommy is coming to sail the sloop."

Again--and fearsomely--the gale intruded upon us. There was a swish of
wind, rising to a long, mad shriek--the roar of rain on the roof--the
rattle of windows--the creaking of the timbers of our house. I trembled
to hear it.

"Oh, doctor!" I moaned.

"Hush!" he said.

The squall subsided. Rain fell in a monotonous patter. Light crept into
the room.

"Davy!"

"Ay, zur?"

"I'm going, now."

"Is you?"

He drew me very close. "I've come to say good-bye," he said. My head
sank in great misgiving against him. I could not say one word. "And you
know, lad," he continued, "that I love your sister. Tell her, when I am
gone, that I love her. Tell her----"

He paused. "An' what, zur," I asked, "shall I tell my sister for you?"

"Tell her--that I love her. No!" he cried. "'Tis not that. Tell her----"

"Ay?"

"That I loved her!"

"Hist!" I whispered, not myself disquieted by this significant change of
form. "She's stirrin' in her room."

It may be that the doctor loved my sister through me--that I found some
strange place in his