Part 25 (1/2)
”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 s.h.i.+fting himself on his elbow.
”Do you remember, Richling, when the girl you had been bowing down to and wors.h.i.+pping, 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 amus.e.m.e.nt, 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 s.h.i.+ne 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 G.o.d'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 suns.h.i.+ne 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.”
CHAPTER XXI.
THE SUN AT MIDNIGHT.
Dr. Sevier was daily overtasked. His campaigns against the evils of our disordered flesh had even kept him from what his fellow-citizens thought was only his share of attention to public affairs.
”Why,” he cried to a committee that came soliciting his cooperation, ”here's one little unprofessional call that I've been trying every day for two weeks to make--and ought to have made--and must make; and I haven't got a step toward it yet. Oh, no, gentlemen!” He waved their request away.
He was very tired. The afternoon was growing late. He dismissed his jaded horse toward home, walked down to Ca.n.a.l street, and took that yellow Bayou-Road omnibus whose big blue star painted on its corpulent side showed that quadroons, etc., were allowed a share of its accommodation, and went rumbling and tumbling over the cobble-stones of the French quarter.