“Would you have her sent away?” I asked of the physician. “Say but the place; I will take her there myself.”
“She is as well here,” said he. Then, as his brows knotted with the problem of it: “This is an unusual case; so unusual, indeed, that during forty years of practice I have never known its fellow. However, it is no question of climate, and she will be as well where she is. The better; since she has no breath with which to stand a journey.”
While I said nothing to this, I made up my mind to have done with politics and take Blossom away. It would, at the worst, mean escape from scenes where we had met with so much misery. That my present rule of the town owned still six months of life before another battle, did not move me. I would give up my leadership and retire at once. It would lose me half a year of gold-heaping, but what should that concern? What mattered a handful of riches, more or less, as against the shoreless relief of seclusion, and Blossom in new scenes of quiet peace? The very newness would take up her thoughts; and with nothing about to recall what had been, or to whisper the name of that villain who hurt her heart to the death, she might have even the good fortune to forget. My decision was made, and I went quietly forward to bring my politics to a close.
It became no question of weeks nor even days; I convened my district leaders, and with the few words demanded of the time, returned them my chiefship and stepped down and out. Politics and I had parted; the machine and I were done.
At that, I cannot think I saw regret over my going in any of the faces which stared up at me. There was a formal sorrow of words; but the great expression to to seize upon each was that of selfish eagerness. I, with my lion's share of whatever prey was taken, would be no more; it was the thought of each that with such the free condition he would be like to find some special fatness not before his own.
Well! what else should I have looked for?—I, who had done only justice by them, why should I be loved? Let them exult; they have subserved my purpose and fulfilled my turn. I was retiring with the wealth of kings:—I, who am an ignorant man, and the son of an Irish smith! If my money had been put into gold it would have asked the strength of eighty teams, with a full ton of gold to a team, to have hauled it out of town—a solid procession of riches an easy half-mile in length! No Alexander, no Cæsar, no Napoleon in his swelling day of conquest, could have made the boast! I was master of every saffron inch of forty millions!
That evening I sat by Blossom's couch and told her of my plans. I made but the poor picture of it, for I have meager power of words, and am fettered with an imagination of no wings. Still, she smiled up at me as though with pleasure—for her want of breath was so urgent she could not speak aloud, but only whisper a syllable now and then—and, after a while, I kissed her, and left her with the physician and nurse for the night.
It was during the first hours of the morning when I awoke in a sweat of horror, as if something of masterful menace were in the room. With a chill in my blood like the touch of ice, I thought of Blossom; and with that I began to huddle on my clothes to go to her.
The physician met me at Blossom's door. He held me back with a gentle hand on my breast.
“Don't go in!” he said.