he felt that he had not deserved this
discourtesy at her hands. Indeed, looking back now, he felt disposed to
resent the indifference with which she had treated him from first to
last. Not as the people's doctor. In that capacity she had been eager
for his services, and grateful to him with a speechless, reverent
gratitude that he felt to be much more than his due; but as a man, as a
companion, as a friend, she had been simply unconscious of his
existence. When she had said to him at the beginning, "You will be
lonely; there is no one on the island to whom you can speak as a
friend," he perceived now that she had excluded herself as well as the
absent world from his companionship. It seemed to him that it had never
once occurred to her that it was in her power to alter this.

Truly, if it had not been for Pembroke, the clergyman, Caius would never
have had a companionable word; and he had found that there were limits
to the interest he could take in Pembroke, that the stock of likings and
disliking that they had in common was not great. Then, too, since the
day on which he had questioned him so vehemently about the relatives of
Madame Le Maitre, he fancied that the clergyman had treated him with
apprehensive reserve.

At the time when he had little or nothing to do, and when Madame Le
Maitre had left Cloud Island, Caius would have been glad enough to go
and explore the other islands, or to luxuriate again in the cookery of
the old maids at the inn at which he had first been housed. Two
considerations kept him from this holiday-taking. In the first place, in
fear of a case of illness he did not like to leave the island while its
benefactress was away; and, secondly, it was reported that all visitors
from The Cloud were ruthlessly shut out from the houses upon the other
islands, because of the unreasoning terror which had grown concerning
the disease. Whether he, who carried money in his pocket, would be shut
out from these neighbouring islands also, he did not care to inquire. He
felt too angry with the way the inhabitants behaved to have any dealings
with them.

The only means of amusement that remained to Caius in these days were
his horse and a gun that O'Shea lent him. With his lunch in his pocket,
he rode upon the ice as far as he might go and return the same day. He
followed the roads that led by the shores of the other islands; or,
where the wind had swept all depth of snow from the ice, he took a path
accordi