A Pair of Patient Lovers by William Dean Howells
page 49 of 269 (18%)
page 49 of 269 (18%)
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"Don't leave me," he entreated, as we hurried out through the maples to the sidewalk. "It has come at last, and I feel, as I always knew I should, like a murderer." "What rubbish!" I retorted. "You don't know that anything has happened. You don't know what the man's gone for." "Yes, I do," he said. "Mrs. Bentley is--He's gone for the doctor." As he spoke a buggy came tearing down the street behind us; the doctor was in it, and the man in shirt-sleeves beside him. We did not try to hail them, but as they whirled by the farmer turned his face, and again called something unintelligible to Glendenning. We made what speed we could after them, but they were long out of sight in the mile that it seemed to me we were an hour in covering before we reached the Bentley place. The doctor's buggy stood at the gate, and I perceived that I was without authority to enter the house, on which some unknown calamity had fallen, no matter with what good-will I had come; I could see that Glendenning had suffered a sudden estrangement, also, which he had to make a struggle against. But he went in, leaving me without, as if he had forgotten me. I could not go away, and I walked down the path to the gate, and waited there, in case I should be in any wise wanted. After a very long time the doctor came bolting over the walk towards me, as if he did not see me, but he brought himself up short with an "Oh!" before he actually struck against me. I had known him during our summer at the Conwell place, where we used to have him in for our little ailments, and I would |
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