"
Thus loaded, he bravely returned at the fitting time to the cottage.
His head was not even bent.
Had you asked Tommy what Elspeth would probably do when she dismissed
David, he might have replied that she would go up to his room and lock
herself into it, so that no one should disturb her for a time. And
this he discovered, on returning home, was actually what had happened.
How well he knew her! How distinctly he heard every beat of her tender
heart, and how easy to him to tell why it was beating! He did not go
up; he waited for little Elspeth to come to him, all in her own good
time. And when she came, looking just as he knew she would look, he
had a brave, bright face for her.
She was shaking after her excitement, or perhaps she had ceased to
shake and begun again as she came down to him. He pretended not to
notice it; he would notice it the moment he was sure she wanted him
to, but perhaps that would not be until she was in bed and he had come
to say good-night and put out her light, for, as we know, she often
kept her great confidences till then, when she discovered that he
already knew them.
"The doctor has been in."
She began almost at once, and in a quaking voice and from a distance,
as if in hope that the bullet might be spent before it reached her
brother.
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