“If Robert Stead, the man cursed with lack of motive, finds a fragment of impulse in the stimulation of awakening his buried knowledge and in contact with your brother, when your brother needs this knowledge, where lies the obligation? No, the scales are evenly balanced; accept the result, and do not draw a breath to jar the adjustment. Moreover, do not judge Stead by the usual social standards, but bear with him. Perhaps at times he may even seem discourteous, for what he thinks he suffered by one woman, and a most remarkable one she was too, has made him curt with all; for his great failing is that he can never judge except by the personal measure, and unconsciously he has made a cult of selfishness.”
“I understand, oh, now I understand; how can I ever thank you for showing me the way? Do you know, Dr. Russell,” Brooke said, clasping her hands on his arm, “it seems to me I never began really to live until the day that trouble came to us;”—while as Brooke spoke, the silent hour in the Parkses’ gallery, and Marte Lorenz’ picture, stretched themselves as the inseparable background to all that had followed, and deepened the colour in her cheeks, that were already glowing with the keen air.
When Brooke and the Doctor finished their tour, and were returning to the house, Tatters still following solemnly, Bisbee’s double-runner sled with the baggage was seen coming from the lower road, while Stead’s cutter turned into the yard from the hill way. The Cub being in a very happy frame of mind as the result of his morning’s trip.
“Only think, Sis!” he cried, as soon as he was within speaking distance, “the blacksmith has a registered dog bull pup, with just as good a pedigree as Pam’s—a son of imported Black-eye who is owned over in Gordon. He’s got a pedigree a mile long all written out, but it’s smudged and mussy, and the blacksmith has offered me a dollar to copy it out on a fan-shaped paper like mine. That will just come in handy to pay Pam’s tax, too; it’s due up here the 1st of January. Then you see next year we’ll go in partnership, and raise some pups, and fifty dollars apiece is the very least we can get for them, and maybe a hundred for the dogs, if they’re clever!”