Everything was all right.
There was only one thought which thrilled him: his impression that she had
come to the hospital to see him was not a delusion; she had really been
there--as a humane, Christian person, he said to himself. One day he told
Meredith of his vision, and Tom explained that it was no conjuration of
fever.
"But I thought she'd gone abroad," said Harkless, staring.
"They had planned to," answered his friend. "They gave it up for some
reason. Uncle Henry decided that he wasn't strong enough for the trip, or
something."
"Then--is she--is she here?"
"No; Helen is never here in summer. When she came back from Plattville,
she went north, somewhere, to join people she had promised, I think."
Meredith had as yet no inkling or suspicion that his adopted cousin had
returned to Plattville. What he told Harkless was what his aunt had told
him, and he accepted it as the truth.
Mrs. Sherwood (for she was both Mr. and Mrs. Sherwood) had always
considered Fisbee an enigmatic rascal, and she regarded Helen's defection
to him in the light of a family scandal to be hushed up, as well as a
scalding pain to be borne. Some day the unkind girl-errant would "return
to her wisdom and her duty"; meanwhile, the less known about it the
better.
Meredith talked very little to Harkless of his cousin, beyond lightly
commenting on the pleasure and oddity of their meeting, and telling him of
her friendly anxiety about his recovery; he said she had perfect
confidence from the first that he would recover.
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