Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/159

. It was asking her to give up, to the selfishness of one man, her Opportunities for Good. Her mother sighed, but said nothing. Then Dr. Richard Schuyler crossed Miss Twombly's line of vision, occasionally at first, then frequently—and at last it seemed always to include him.

There was no sudden upheaval in the experience—nor was there at first any apparent lessening of interest in her career. In fact, weeks and months passed before she even dimly realized how important a place the quiet doctor was taking in her life. He was a great man in his little world—a wonderful surgeon whose operations were watched and talked about. As she came to know him better, meeting him often in the hospitals she visited, she had a vague memory of having heard much gossip concerning him during her school-days. There had been some remarkable story of a love affair—an unfortunate one—in his early life. That must have been long ago, she reflected. He was over forty now. The age seemed far advanced to the girl of twenty-one. But he was plainly not the victim of a corroding grief. He was cheerful, well poised, ambitious, a little self-centred, she thought, but full of a beautiful sympathy of which she found the practical wake in her visits. Her poor people adored him. From these