time; a
laryngoscope and some other professional apparatus of constant utility
lay upon the leaf of the doctor's desk. There was nothing in the room
which did not suggest his profession, except the sword and the spurs
which hung upon the wall opposite where Grace sat beside one of
the front windows. She spent her time in study of the room and its
appointments, and in now and then glancing out at Mr. Libby, who sat
statuesquely patient in the buggy. His profile cut against the sky was
blameless; and a humorous shrewdness which showed in the wrinkle at his
eye and in the droop of his yellow mustache gave its regularity life
and charm. It occurred to her that if Dr. Mulbridge caught sight of Mr.
Libby before he saw her, or before she could explain that she had
got one of the gentlemen at the hotel--she resolved upon this
prevarication--to drive her to Corbitant in default of another
conveyance, he would have his impressions and conjectures, which
doubtless the bunch of lilies in her hand would do their part to
stimulate. She submitted to this possibility, and waited for his coming,
which began to seem unreasonably delayed. The door opened at last, and
a tall, powerfully framed man of thirty-five or forty, dressed in an
ill-fitting suit of gray Canada homespun appeared. He moved with a
slow, pondering step, and carried his shaggy head bent downwards from
shoulders slightly rounded. His dark beard was already grizzled, and she
saw that his mustache was burnt and turned tawny at points by smoking,
of which habit his presence gave stale evidence to another sense. He
held Grace's card in his hand, and he looked at her, as he advanced, out
of gray eyes that, if not sympathetic, were perfectly intelligent, and
that at once sought to divine and class her. She perceived that he took
in the lilies and her coming color; she felt that he noted her figure
and her dress.

She half rose in response to his questioning bow, and he motioned her
to her seat again. "I had to keep you waiting," he said. "I was up all
night with a patient, and I was asleep when my mother called me." He
stopped here, and definitively waited for her to begin.

She did not find this easy, as he took a chair in front of her, and sat
looking steadily in her face. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you" "Oh, not
at all," he interrupted. "The rule is to disturb a doctor."

"I mean," she began again, "that I am not sure that I am justified in
disturbing you."

He waite