The doctor must have guessed my thoughts , for at last he looked up with a smile . `` She will come back , '' was all he said . But I saw that the doubt , if doubt it were , had gone . I watched him as he went away , that tall , gentle , kindly-eyed man , and I prayed that his trust might not be misplaced ; for if it should be it would break his heart . Five years seems a long time in looking forward . But they pass quickly . One day I remembered that it was Marcella 's twenty-first birthday . Only one other person thought of it . Even Miss Sara did not . Miss Sara remembered Marcella only as a child that had been loved and lost . Nobody else in Bridgeport thought about her at all . The doctor came in that evening . He had a rose in his buttonhole and he walked with a step as light as a boy 's . `` She is free to-day , '' he said . `` We shall soon have her again , Miss Tranquil . '' `` Do you think she will be the same ? '' I said . I do n't know what made me say it . I hate to be one of those people who throw cold water on other peoples ' hopes . But it slipped out before I thought .
I suppose the doubt had been vaguely troubling me always , under all my faith in XXXXX , and now made itself felt in spite of me .
Bridgeport Marcella Sara buttonhole child day evening peoples twenty-first years