When she returned from Mrs. Lister's bedside, Thomasina sat for a long time looking into her garden. The light shimmered above the flower-beds, the plants were drooping. The air even in her cool room was heavy and hard to breathe.

Summoned to lunch, she ate only enough to prevent alarmed inquiries from 'Melia, then she went upstairs. She took off her dress and put on a cool and flowing gown and lay down upon her couch and closed her eyes. After a while she rose and opened a drawer in her bureau and took out a little inlaid box, and from it lifted a package of letters. She did not read them or even open the package, but looked at them and laid them back. Once more she lay down upon her couch and hot tears rolled from under her eyelids and out upon her cheeks. After a long time she fell asleep.

In the morning she went again to Dr. Green's office. She rang the bell and entered and sat down to wait Virginia's pleasure, almost certain that Dr. Green had not come back. When Virginia appeared, lithe and shapely and deliberate of motion, Thomasina had reached a point which she seldom allowed herself even to approach. Virginia looked in consternation at her flushed face.

"You sure you not sick, Miss Thomas'?"

"No, Virginia. Has the doctor come?"

"No, Miss Thomas'."

"Virginia"—Thomasina could be no longer restrained—"why don't you keep the doctor's office in better order? Look at that corner. And at that!"

Virginia leaned against the door.

"Don't believe doctor he could find things if it was too clean, Miss Thomas'. Could I get you something—glass of water or something? You look all wore out."

Thomasina smiled faintly. The race disarmed anger.

"No, I thank you."

She started to Dr. Green's office on a third morning. As she was about to leave her door she saw the doctor entering the gate.

"I got back on the nine o'clock train," he explained. "This morning Virginia came early—early, if you please—to tell me that you have been twice to my office. She suspects all sorts of afflictions. Surely you are not ill!"

Thomasina led the way into her parlor and sat down upon her throne-like chair. Her pale face wore both a judicial and an embarrassed air.

"You should have a wife, Dr. Green. Virginia should be taken in hand, dealt with, commanded, bullied."

"I agree with you. You are thinking of my office. I suppose when I'm away, Virginia's 'on the town' as she says."

"But a wife could make a fine girl of Virginia."

Dr. Green looked at Thomasina with faint astonishment. It was not like her to assume so intimate and bantering an air.

"I hope there is nothing serious the matter. What are your symptoms? Do you not think it is the intense heat that has affected you?"

"The heat never troubles me. It is a patient of yours who worries me. I mean Mrs. Lister."

"Mrs. Lister! there's no reason to worry about her. There was nothing seriously wrong with her when I went away and I found no message when I got back."

"They wouldn't send a message about this. Her trouble is not to be cured by medicine, it is of the mind."

Dr. Green pursed his lips and frowned. He was surprised at Thomasina and was prepared to give her his most earnest attention. She would not speak to him in this fashion without good reason. He rested his arms on the arms of his chair and leaned forward, his hands clasped lightly. Whatever his origin, he was a person of distinguished presence, and, except in the matter of order in his office, of fastidious taste.

"Well, Miss Thomasina," said he in his clear, deliberate, well-modulated voice.

When Thomasina began to speak in a high tone, as though she were forcing herself a little, he frowned again; as she went on a dull color stole into his cheek and his motionless figure seemed to stiffen. He might well blush to hear so extraordinary a betrayal of confidence.

"Dr. Green, Basil Everman, Mrs. Lister's brother, about whom we have recently heard so much and of whom you and I spoke upon one occasion, was a good man, but he was a genius, and it is the common fate of geniuses to be misunderstood. They are often denied by their friends the possession of common and sometimes of moral sense. Basil wore flowing neckties at a period when neckties were small; he used well-selected words when the rest of mankind were indifferent to their speech; he drew sometimes a parallel from the classics—consequently Waltonville thought him queer. You know Waltonville's attitude of mind?"

"Perfectly."

"But he did worse, he did not always come to meals on time, or go, candle in hand, in solemn procession to bed when the rest of the family went, old Dr. Everman in his white stock, Mary Alcestis looking tearfully back over her shoulder, hoping in terror that Basil might at that moment be heard on the porch. They attributed to him strange motives and stranger acts. They watched him, were embarrassed for him, apologized for him. They thought of him, in moments of unusual charity, as not quite sound. They thought in other moments a good deal worse of him. Basing their opinion on stupid coincidences, they blamed upon him actual crimes. They did not wish to believe these things of Basil. Over what she really believes is true, Mrs. Lister has been for many years breaking her heart. It is that which ails her, and not the heat."

"How foolish!" said Dr. Green, leaning back in his chair. "Let the past bury its dead. Middle life, you see, with no mental exercise. How very foolish!"

"But the dead aren't buried, they are in our midst, and as long as Eleanor Bent is in sight, Mrs. Lister must worry her heart out."

"Eleanor Bent!" repeated Dr. Green, bending forward once more. "What has she to do with it?"

Thomasina looked down at the floor. She hesitated; perhaps remembering at this moment that she had never before betrayed the confidence of a friend. Perhaps it was because she had a sickening conviction that her whole course in this matter was that of a fool.

"The Listers have imagined—at least Mrs. Lister has from these stupid coincidences—has imagined it for years, weeping over it in secret—that Eleanor Bent is her brother Basil's daughter."

"Extraordinary!" said Dr. Green slowly. "Does any one else have this notion?"

"I think not. Basil was as much forgotten as though he had never been born."

"What are these coincidences?"

"Mrs. Lister saw the two together, followed them, indeed, and says that Margie Ginter was clinging to Basil's arm and pleading with him and crying. In the second place, he went away from Waltonville about the time that the Ginters went. In the third, Eleanor has in Mrs. Lister's eyes a strong resemblance to him. Then there is this writing."

"Writing?" queried Dr. Green.

"Yes, Eleanor's writing. What is more likely than that she should have inherited talent from Basil Everman?"

"The fact that her work bears not the remotest resemblance to his has nothing to do with the question, I presume?"

"Writing is writing," answered Thomasina in her lightest tone. She waited for a word from Dr. Green, but none came. "Margie Ginter was a good girl, I have always believed," she went on. "She was in a dreadful position here. If Basil had anything to do with her, it was to help her in some fashion. He was—" Thomasina did not go on with her sentence; it seemed difficult for her to say what he was. "As for the resemblance, Eleanor has gray eyes and so had he, and a light step and so had he, but others have bright eyes and a light step."

Dr. Green still said nothing. He seemed to give each sentence of Thomasina's careful consideration.

"It is a pity for Mary Alcestis to have worried for so many years." Her voice seemed to lose its strength.

"One can't do much for a woman as foolish as that," said Dr. Green. "I should say she deserves to have the punishment exactly suited to her case."

"It is a pity, too, for little Mrs. Bent," went on Thomasina.

"What no one knows will not hurt Mrs. Bent."

"No one knows now," answered Thomasina. "But Mary Alcestis told me. She is in a hysterical condition and there is no telling to whom she may break out. It would be most unfortunate to have this pried out of her by—well, say by Mrs. Scott."

Again Dr. Green was silent.

"It's a pity, too, for Eleanor," said Thomasina.

"I think it very unlikely that Mrs. Lister will let such a mad tale become public—you say it is a mad tale."

"It is a pity for Richard, too."

"Richard least of all," answered Dr. Green. "I can't see how he would be affected."

"Then you have not been watching the young people."

"I don't understand you."

"I mean that Richard is evidently in love with Eleanor and that his mother has found it out—therefore his absence and her tears."

"Is Eleanor in tears?" Dr. Green's tone sharpened.

"Yes, a part of the time Eleanor is in tears."

"She had better cry than think of marrying," declared Dr. Green. "Such a match would be the end of her work. It would be the greatest mistake, it would be a calamity. She has every prospect of success. I do not believe that she can be seriously impressed with that silky mother's boy. If she is, let her get over it!"

"You have always taken a great interest in her."

"Yes," answered Dr. Green. "I have. She has possibilities."

"I saw by accident your check for her piano," said Thomasina. "It lay on the desk in the company's office."

"Did you?" asked Dr. Green coolly. His tone could have been no more severe if Thomasina had opened and read one of his letters. "What did you conclude from that?"

Thomasina did not answer his question.

"It is worst of all for Basil Everman," said she. "When one thinks of him, it becomes monstrous. Doesn't it seem so to you, Dr. Green?"

Green rose to his feet. He met Thomasina's eyes coolly.

"Miss Thomasina—"

Thomasina lifted her hand.

"What I concluded was simply that you knew more about Mrs. Bent and her daughter than the rest of us," said she. "I am sure that Eleanor has an honorable paternity and Mrs. Bent a history that could be safely revealed. But one could not go to her and ask her!"

"From your own account the danger of this myth becoming public is so small as to be almost negligible. Since Mrs. Bent and her daughter are not likely to stay in Waltonville, it is wholly negligible. As for my connection with the Bents—it is this—I believe that Eleanor has a mind of great promise. I have tried to influence her and I shall continue to try."

"I am sorry that I told you," said Thomasina faintly.

"There is no reason that you should be," said Dr. Green. "If Mrs. Lister needs any further attention I shall have her case already diagnosed."

When he had gone, Thomasina sat down in her high-backed chair. Her face was deathly pale, her hands lay limply in her lap, her eyes were closed. Suddenly she sat upright.

"I believe he has lied to me," said she. Her hands gripped the arms of her chair, her eyes seemed to be fixed intently upon objects outside her parlor. She saw Dr. Green and heard him speak; she saw also another figure and heard also another voice.

"I would like for you to choose a pie-anna"—why was it that the one suggested the other? Thomasina remembered Dr. Green distinctly in his queer, opinionated, misogynistic youth. Had he ever even spoken to Margie Ginter before she had returned to Waltonville? She thought of Eleanor, followed the lines of her body, the contour of her face. There was a line from brow to chin, there was a shapely nose, there was—but she could think no more.

She rose and walked up and down the room, her brain weary with speculation. After a long time she said aloud, "Oh, Basil!"