Instinctively Oliver felt in his pockets for his purse. There was just money enough to take him to Kennedy Square and back.
His mother met him at the door.
"It was only a fainting turn, my son," were her first words. "I am sorry I sent for you. Your father is himself again, so Dr. Wallace says. He has been working too hard lately—sometimes far into the night. I could have stopped you from coming; but, somehow, I wanted you—" and she held him close in her arms, and laid her cheek against his. "I get so lonely, my boy, and feel so helpless sometimes."
The weak and strong were changing places. She felt the man in him now.
Nathan was in the library. He and Malachi had been taking turns at Richard's bedside. Malachi had not closed his eyes all night. Nathan came out into the hall when he heard Oliver's voice, and put his hand on his shoulder.
"We had a great scare, Ollie," he said, "but he's all right again, thank God! He's asleep now—better not wake him." Then he put on his coat and went home.
Malachi shook his head. "Sumpin's de matter wid him, an' dis ain't de las' ob it. Drapped jes' like a shote when he's hit, Marse Oliver," he said, in a low whisper, as if afraid of disturbing his master on the floor above. "I was a-layin' out his clo'es an' he called quick like, 'Malachi! Malachi!' an' when I got dar, he was lyin' on de flo' wid his head on de mat. I ain't nebber seen Marse Richard do like dat befo'—" The old servant trembled as he spoke. He evidently did not share Nathan's hopeful views. Neither did Dr. Wallace, although he did not say so to anyone.
Their fears, however, were not realized. Richard not only revived, but by the end of the week he was in the drawing-room again, Malachi, in accordance with the time-honored custom, wheeling out his chair, puffing up the cushions, and, with a wave of the hand and a sweeping bow, saying:
"Yo' ch'ar's all ready, Marse Richard. Hope you'se feelin' fine dis evenin', sah!"
The following day he was in his "li'l' room," Oliver helping him. It was the lifting of the heavy plate of the motor that had hurt Richard, so Nathan told him; not the same motor which Oliver remembered; another, much larger and built on different lines. The inventor now used twenty-four cells instead of ten, and the magnets had been wrapped with finer wire.