Then the County Prosecutor, also a henchman of Kelly's, secured from the Grand Jury—composed of farmers, merchants and owners of factories—indictments against Thomas Colman and Victor Dorn for inciting a riot.
Meanwhile Victor Dorn was rapidly recovering. With rare restraint young Dr. Charlton did not fuss and fret and meddle, did not hamper nature with his blundering efforts to assist, did not stuff "nourishment" into his patient to decay and to produce poisonous blood. He let the young man's superb vitality work the inevitable and speedy cure. Thus, wounds and shocks, that have often been mistreated by doctors into mortal, passed so quickly that only Selma Gordon and the doctor himself realized how grave Victor's case had been. The day he was indicted—just a week from the riot—he was sitting up and was talking freely.
"Won't it set him back if I tell him all that has occurred?" said Selma.
"Talk to him as you would to me," replied Charlton. "He is a sensible man. I've already told him pretty much everything. It has kept him from fretting, to be able to lie there quietly and make his plans."
Had you looked in upon Victor and Selma, in Colman's little transformed parlor, you would rather have thought Selma the invalid. The man in the bed was pale and thin of face, but his eyes had the expression of health and of hope. Selma had great circles under her eyes and her expression was despair struggling to conceal itself. Those indictments, those injunctions—how powerful the enemy were! How could such an enemy, aroused new and inflexibly resolved, be combatted?—especially when one had no money, no way of reaching the people, no chance to organize.
"Dr. Charlton has told you?" said Selma.
"Day before yesterday," replied Victor. "Why do you look so down-in-the-mouth, Selma?"
"It isn't easy to be cheerful, with you ill and the paper destroyed," replied she.
"But I'm not ill, and the paper isn't destroyed," said Victor. "Never were either I or it doing such good work as now." His eyes were dancing. "What more could one ask than to have such stupid enemies as we've got?"
Selma did not lift her eyes. To her those enemies seemed anything but stupid. Had they not ruined the League?