Margaret was thinking of all this, and was feeling specially forlorn as she sat alone in the little sitting-room at the Mill House one evening in early April. She held a book before her, but she was not reading; and she looked up at once when Patty entered the room.
"I'm sorry ter trouble ye," began Patty, hesitatingly, "but Bobby McGinnis is here an' wanted me ter ask ye----"
"That's all right, Patty," she said so sharply that Patty opened wide her eyes; "but suppose you just ask Bobby McGinnis to come here to me and ask his question direct. I will see him now." And Patty, wondering vaguely what had come to her gentle-eyed, gentle-voiced mistress--as she insisted upon calling Margaret--fled precipitately.
Two minutes later Bobby McGinnis himself stood tall and straight just inside the door.
Margaret sprang to her feet. All the pent loneliness of the past weeks and months burst forth in a stinging whip of retort.
"Yes, I sent for you." She paused, but the man did not speak, and in a moment she went on hurriedly, feverishly. "I always send for you--if I see you at all, and yet you know how hard I'm trying to help these people, and that you are the only one here that can help me."
She paused again, and again the man was silent.
"Don't you know what I'm trying to do?" she asked.
"Yes." The lips closed firmly over the single word.
"Didn't I ask you to help me? Didn't I appoint us a committee of two to do the work?" Her voice shook, and her chin trembled like that of a grieved child.
"Yes." Again that strained, almost harsh monosyllable.
"Bobby McGinnis, why don't you help me?" she demanded, tearfully. "Why do you stand aloof and send to me? Why don't you come to me frankly and freely, and tell me the best way to deal with these people?"
There was no answer. The man had half turned his face so that only his profile showed clean-cut and square-chinned against the close-shut door.
"Don't you know that I am alone here--that I have no friends but you and Patty?" she went on tremulously. "Do you think it kind of you to let me struggle along alone like this? Sometimes it seems almost as if you were afraid----"
"I am afraid," cut in a voice shaken with emotion.
"Bobby!" breathed Margaret in surprised dismay, falling back before the fire in the eyes that suddenly turned and flashed straight into hers. "Why, Bobby!"