While the doctor fumbled over his bottles, and for the fourth time held a large phial, marked Sulph. de Quin., up to the light, as though he were counting the grains, the young preacher was instituting an inquiry into his own religious state. Why did he shrink from Pottawottomie Creek circuit? He had braved much harder toil and greater danger. On Pottawottomie Creek he would have a senior colleague upon whom all administrative responsibilities would devolve, and the year promised to be an easy one in comparison with the preceding. On inquiring of himself he found that there was no circuit that would be attractive to him in his present state of mind, except the one that lay all around Dr. Morgan's house. At first Kike Lumsden, playing hide-and-seek with his own motives, as other men do under like circumstances, gave himself much credit for his grateful attachment to the family. Surely gratitude is a generous quality, and had not Dr. Morgan, though of another denomination, taken him under his roof and given him professional attention free of charge? And Mrs. Morgan and Jane and Nettie, had they not cared for him as though he were a brother? What could be more commendable than that he should find himself loth to leave people who were so good?
But Kike had not been in the habit of cheating himself. He had always dealt hardly with Kike Lumsden. He could not rest now in this subterfuge; he would not give himself credit that he did not deserve. So while the doctor walked to the window and senselessly examined the contents of one of his bottles marked "Hydrarg.," Kike took another and closer look at his own mind and saw that the one person whose loss would be painful to him was not Dr. Morgan, nor his excellent wife, nor the admirable Jane, but the volatile Nettie, the cadence of whose spinning wheel he was even then hearkening to. The consciousness that he was in love came to him suddenly—a consciousness not without pleasure, but with a plentiful admixture of pain.
Doctor Morgan's eyes, glancing with characteristic alertness, caught the expression of a new self-knowledge and of an anxious pain upon the forehead of Lumsden. Then the physician seemed all at once satisfied with his medicines. The bottle labelled "Hydrarg." and the "Sulph. de Quin." were now replaced in the saddle bags.
At this moment Nettie herself came into the room on some errand. Kike had heard her wheel stop—had looked toward the door—had caught her glance as she came in, and had, in that moment, become aware that he was not the only person in love. Was it, then, that the doctor wished to prevent the attachment going further that he had delicately reminded his guest of the approach of the time when he must leave? These thoughts aroused Kike from the lassitude of his slow convalescence. Nettie went back to her wheel, and set it humming louder than ever, but Kike heard now in its tones some note of anxiety that disturbed him. The doctor came and sat down by him and felt his pulse, ostensibly to see if he had fever, really to add yet another link to the chain of evidence that his surmise was correct.
"Mr. Lumsden," said he, "a constitution so much impaired as yours cannot recuperate in a few days."
"I know that, sir," said Kike, "and I am anxious to get to my mother's for a rest there, that I may not burden you any longer, and——"
"You misunderstand me, my dear fellow, if you think I want to be rid of you. I wish you would stay with me always; I do indeed."
For a moment Kike looked out of the window. To stay with the doctor always would, it seemed to him, be a heaven upon earth. But had he not renounced all thought of a heaven on earth? Had he not said plainly that here he had no abiding place? Having put his hand to the plow, should he look back?
"But I ought not to give up my work."
It was not in this tone that Kike would have spurned such a temptation awhile before.