Harkless had said a word
or two in his delirium and a word or two out of it, and these, with once a
sudden brow of suffering, and a difference Meredith felt in Helen's manner
when they stood together by the sick man's bedside, had given the young
man a strong impression, partly intuitive, that in spite of the short time
the two had known each other, something had happened between them at
Plattville, and he ventured a guess which was not far from the truth.
Altogether, the thing was fairly plain--a sad lover is not so hard to
read--and Meredith was sorry, for they were the two people he liked best
on earth.
The young man carried his gay presence daily to the hospital, where
Harkless now lay in a pleasant room of his own, and he tried to keep his
friend cheery, which was an easy matter on the surface, for the journalist
turned ever a mask of jokes upon him; but it was not hard for one who
liked him as Meredith did to see through to the melancholy underneath.
After his one reference to Helen, John was entirely silent of her, and
Meredith came to feel that both would be embarrassed if occasion should
rise and even her name again be mentioned between them.
He did not speak of his family connection with Mr. Fisbee to the invalid,
for, although the connection was distant, the old man was, in a way, the
family skeleton, and Meredith had a strong sense of the decency of reserve
in such a matter.
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