_ CHAPTER XX. ALICE
A little medicine skilfully prescribed, the proper nourishment, two or three days' confinement in bed, and the Doctor said, as he sat on the edge of Richling's couch:--
"No, you'd better stay where you are to-day; but to-morrow, if the weather is good, you may sit up."
Then Richling, with the unreasonableness of a convalescent, wanted to know why he couldn't just as well go home. But the Doctor said again, no.
"Don't be impatient; you'll have to go anyhow before I would prefer to send you. It would be invaluable to you to pass your entire convalescence here, and go home only when you are completely recovered. But I can't arrange it very well. The Charity Hospital is for sick people."
"And where is the place for convalescents?"
"There is none," replied the physician.
"I shouldn't want to go to it, myself," said Richling, lolling pleasantly on his pillow; "all I should ask is strength to get home, and I'd be off."
The Doctor looked another way.
"The sick are not the wise," he said, abstractedly. "However, in your case, I should let you go to your wife as soon as you safely could." At that he fell into so long a reverie that Richling studied every line of his face again and again.
A very pleasant thought was in the convalescent's mind the while. The last three days had made it plain to him that the Doctor was not only his friend, but was willing that Richling should be his.
At length the physician spoke:--
"Mary is wonderfully like Alice, Richling."
"Yes?" responded Richling, rather timidly. And the Doctor continued:--
"The same age, the same stature, the same features. Alice was a shade paler in her style of beauty, just a shade. Her hair was darker; but otherwise her whole effect was a trifle quieter, even, than Mary's. She was beautiful,--outside and in. Like Mary, she had a certain richness of character--but of a different sort. I suppose I would not notice the difference if they were not so much alike. She didn't stay with me long."
"Did you lose her--here?" asked Richling, hardly knowing how to break the silence that fell, and yet lead the speaker on.
"No. In Virginia." The Doctor was quiet a moment, and then resumed:--
"I looked at your wife when she was last in my office, Richling; she had a little timid, beseeching light in her eyes that is not usual with her--and a moisture, too; and--it seemed to me as though Alice had come back. For my wife lived by my moods. Her spirits rose or fell just as my whim, conscious or unconscious, gave out light or took on shadow." The Doctor was still again, and Richling only indicated his wish to hear more by shifting himself on his elbow.
"Do you remember, Richling, when the girl you had been bowing down to and worshipping, all at once, in a single wedding day, was transformed into your adorer?"
"Yes, indeed," responded the convalescent, with beaming face. "Wasn't it wonderful? I couldn't credit my senses. But how did you--was it the same"--
"It's the same, Richling, with every man who has really secured a woman's heart with her hand. It was very strange and sweet to me. Alice would have been a spoiled child if her parents could have spoiled her; and when I was courting her she was the veriest little empress that ever walked over a man."
"I can hardly imagine," said Richling, with subdued amusement, looking at the long, slender form before him. The Doctor smiled very sweetly.
"Yes." Then, after another meditative pause: "But from the moment I became her husband she lived in continual trepidation. She so magnified me in her timid fancy that she was always looking tremulously to me to see what should be her feeling. She even couldn't help being afraid of me. I hate for any one to be afraid of me."
"Do you, Doctor?" said Richling, with surprise and evident introspection.
"Yes."
Richling felt his own fear changing to love.
"When I married," continued Dr. Sevier, "I had thought Alice was one that would go with me hand in hand through life, dividing its cares and doubling its joys, as they say; I guiding her and she guiding me. But if I had let her, she would have fallen into me as a planet might fall into the sun. I didn't want to be the sun to her. I didn't want her to shine only when I shone on her, and be dark when I was dark. No man ought to want such a thing. Yet she made life a delight to me; only she wanted that development which a better training, or even a harder training, might have given her; that subserving of the emotions to the"--he waved his hand--"I can't philosophize about her. We loved one another with our might, and she's in heaven."
Richling felt an inward start. The Doctor interrupted his intended speech.
"Our short experience together, Richling, is the one great light place in my life; and to me, to-day, sere as I am, the sweet--the sweetest sound--on God's green earth"--the corners of his mouth quivered--"is the name of Alice. Take care of Mary, Richling; she's a priceless treasure. Don't leave the making and sustaining of the home sunshine all to her, any more than you'd like her to leave it all to you."
"I'll not, Doctor; I'll not." Richling pressed the Doctor's hand fervently; but the Doctor drew it away with a certain energy, and rose, saying:--
"Yes, you can sit up to-morrow."
The day that Richling went back to his malarious home in Prieur street Dr. Sevier happened to meet him just beyond the hospital gate. Richling waved his hand. He looked weak and tremulous. "Homeward bound," he said, gayly.
The physician reached forward in his carriage and bade his driver stop. "Well, be careful of yourself; I'm coming to see you in a day or two." _