AT LAST.
Mary, cooking supper, uttered a soft exclamation of pleasure and relief
as she heard John's step under the alley window and then at the door.
She turned, with an iron spoon in one hand and a candlestick in the
other, from the little old stove with two pot-holes, where she had been
stirring some mess in a tin pan.
"Why, you're"--she reached for a kiss--"real late!"
"I could not come any sooner." He dropped into a chair at the table.
"Busy?"
"No; no work to-day."
Mary lifted the pan from the stove, whisked it to the table, and blew
her fingers.
"Same subject continued," she said laughingly, pointing with her spoon
to the warmed-over food.
Richling smiled and nodded, and then flattened his elbows out on the
table and hid his face in them.
This was the first time he had ever lingered away from his wife when he
need not have done so. It was the Doctor's proposition that had kept him
back. All day long it had filled his thoughts. He felt its wisdom. Its
sheer practical value had pierced remorselessly into the deepest
convictions of his mind. But his heart could not receive it.
"Well," said Mary, brightly, as she sat down at the table, "maybe
you'll have better luck to-morrow. Don't you think you may?"
"I don't know," said John, straightening up and tossing back his hair.
He pushed a plate up to the pan, supplied and passed it. Then he helped
himself and fell to eating.
"Have you seen Dr. Sevier to-day?" asked Mary, cautiously, seeing her
husband pause and fall into distraction.
He pushed his plate away and rose. She met him in the middle of the
room. He extended both hands, took hers, and gazed upon her. How could
he tell? Would she cry and lament, and spurn the proposition, and fall
upon him with a hundred kisses? Ah, if she would! But he saw that Doctor
Sevier, at least, was confident she would not; that she would have,
instead, what the wife so often has in such cases, the strongest love,
it may be, but also the strongest wisdom for that particular sort of
issue. Which would she do? Would she go, or would she not?
He tried to withdraw his hands, but she looked beseechingly into his
eyes and knit her fingers into his. The question stuck upon his lips and
would not be uttered. And why should it be? Was it not cowardice to
leave the decision to her? Should not he decide? Oh! if she would only
rebel! But would she? Would not her utmost be to give good reasons in
her gentle, inquiring way why he should not require her to leave him?
And were there any such? No! no! He had racked his brain to find so much
as one, all day long.
"John," said Mary, "Dr. Sevier's been talking to you?"
"Yes."
"And he wants you to send me back home for a while?"
"How do you know?" asked John, with a start.
"I can read it in your face." She loosed one hand and laid it upon his
brow.
"What--what do you think about it, Mary?"
Mary, looking into his eyes with the face of one who pleads for mercy,
whispered, "He's right," then buried her face in his bosom and wept like
a babe.
"I felt it six months ago," she said later, sitting on her husband's
knee and holding his folded hands tightly in hers.
"Why didn't you say so?" asked John.
"I was too selfish," was her reply.
When, on the second day afterward, they entered the Doctor's office
Richling was bright with that new hope which always rises up beside a
new experiment, and Mary looked well and happy. The Doctor wrote them a
letter of introduction to the steam-boat agent.
"You're taking a very sensible course," he said, smoothing the
blotting-paper heavily over the letter. "Of course, you think it's hard.
It is hard. But distance needn't separate you."
"It can't," said Richling.
"Time," continued the Doctor,--"maybe a few months,--will bring you
together again, prepared for a long life of secure union; and then, when
you look back upon this, you'll be proud of your courage and good sense.
And you'll be"-- He enclosed the note, directed the envelope, and,
pausing with it still in his hand, turned toward the pair. They rose up.
His rare, sick-room smile hovered about his mouth, and he said:--
"You'll be all the happier--all three of you."
The husband smiled. Mary colored down to the throat and looked up on the
wall, where Harvey was explaining to his king the circulation of the
blood. There was quite a pause, neither side caring to utter the first
adieu.
"If a physician could call any hour his own," presently said the Doctor,
"I should say I would come down to the boat and see you off. But I might
fail in that. Good-by!"
"Good-by, Doctor!"--a little tremor in the voice,--"take care of John."
The tall man looked down into the upturned blue eyes.
"Good-by!" He stooped toward her forehead, but she lifted her lips and
he kissed them. So they parted.
The farewell with Mrs. Riley was mainly characterized by a generous and
sincere exchange of compliments and promises of remembrance. Some tears
rose up; a few ran over.
At the steam-boat wharf there were only the pair themselves to cling one
moment to each other and then wave that mute farewell that looks through
watery eyes and sticks in the choking throat. Who ever knows what
good-by means?
* * *
"Doctor," said Richling, when he came to accept those terms in the
Doctor's proposition which applied more exclusively to himself,--"no,
Doctor, not that way, please." He put aside the money proffered him.
"This is what I want to do: I will come to your house every morning and
get enough to eat to sustain me through the day, and will continue to do
so till I find work."
"Very well," said the Doctor.
The arrangement went into effect. They never met at dinner; but almost
every morning the Doctor, going into the breakfast-room, met Richling
just risen from his earlier and hastier meal.
"Well? Anything yet?"
"Nothing yet."
And, unless there was some word from Mary, nothing more would be said.
So went the month of November.
But at length, one day toward the close of the Doctor's office hours, he
noticed the sound of an agile foot springing up his stairs three steps
at a stride, and Richling entered, panting and radiant.
"Doctor, at last! At last!"
"At last, what?"
"I've found employment! I have, indeed! One line from you, and the place
is mine! A good place, Doctor, and one that I can fill. The very thing
for me! Adapted to my abilities!" He laughed so that he coughed, was
still, and laughed again. "Just a line, if you please, Doctor."