He covered his long, leathery face with his hands, and cried aloud: “I look like a great big sole-leather baby! Whatever will Maria say! I’ll never tell her that it is the effect of that confounded “X” ray; if I did I should never hear the last of it; I’ve been sick, I am sick—sick of the whole business.”
Meanwhile at home, Maria had at first reproached herself with her irritability, and finished by writing Christopher a loving, and penitent little note, which she sent to Abbeyville. Of course she received no reply.
“He must have been very angry,” she sobbingly exclaimed.
She wrote again, a still more penitent and pleading letter; this not being answered, she became very indignant.
“If he wants to be so awfully huffy, let him!” she said wrathfully; but when a whole month passed, and no tidings came as to his whereabouts, she became alarmed, and began to institute cautious inquiries.
Of course, all search proved unavailing, and Maria wept and mourned her Christopher as dead.
Nearly five months from the day he left his home, Christopher wearily climbed the front steps of his own residence, and rang the bell. His clothing hung loosely on his gaunt limbs; his long, thin face was the color of leather; his eyes, devoid of lashes, and without eyebrows, looked perfectly lifeless.
Hannah, an old servant in the family, opened the door.
“If you want food go to the rear door,” she cried sharply, as she shut him out unceremoniously.
He sat down on the upper step, pale and trembling.