CHAPTER XVII


_"I wish your confounded Old Chester people would mind their own
affairs! This prying into things that are none of their business
is--"_

Lloyd Pryor stopped; read over what he had written, and ground his
teeth. No; he couldn't send her such a letter. It would call down a
storm of reproach and anger and love. And, after all, it wasn't her
fault; this doctor fellow had said that she did not know of his call.
Still, if she hadn't been friendly with those people, the man wouldn't
have thought of "looking him up"! Then he remembered that he had been
the one to be friendly with the "doctor fellow"; and that made him
angry again. But his next letter was more reasonable, and so more
deadly.

_"You will see that if I had not happened to be at home, it might
have been a very serious matter. I must ask you to consider my
position, and discourage your friends in paying any attention to
me."_

This, too, he tore up, with a smothered word. It wouldn't do; if he
wounded her too much, she was capable of taking the next train--! And
so he wrote, with non-committal brevity:

_"I have to be in Mercer Friday night, and I think I can get down to
Old Chester for a few hours between stages on Saturday. I hope your
cook has recovered, and we can have some dinner? Tell David he can get
his sling ready; and do, for Heaven's sake, fend off visitors!" Then