But his great mental trouble of anxiety to see or hear from his young wife, left alone in the city hotel, tended to retard his recovery, which was very tedious.
His mates had prospered in their search for gold. The mine promised to hold out, and not run out as so many did. So, finding that the sick man’s anxiety to see his young wife far outweighed his craving for the gold mine, they made up a liberal purse among themselves to send him on his way rejoicing.
As soon as he was able to walk he set out on foot from the mining camp. He was accompanied half a day’s journey by a couple of his companions, who brought him as far as a friendly Indian’s hut and there bade him good-by, leaving him to rest for the afternoon and spend the night, while they retraced their steps to the mining camp.
Early the next morning The O’Melaghlin resumed his journey and dragged himself by slow stages of ten or fifteen miles a day, stopping at night in miner’s, hunter’s or Indian’s hut, according as either offered shelter near the close of evening.
And so at length he reached the city late one autumn night, and went straight to the hotel where he had left his young wife.
There he learned that she had been dead and buried for more than a month past, and that the twins to which she had given birth were in the care of the professional nurse, Mrs. Mandy Mally, of Cyprus Lane.
But he scarcely heard this last item of intelligence.
The shock of the first fatal news, coming as it did after the wasting of his long illness and the weariness of his long tramp, quite overwhelmed The O’Melaghlin.
He fell senseless to the floor.
He was taken up and sent to the casual ward of a public hospital, where he suffered a severe relapse that confined him to his bed for many weeks.