Once, in lowered tones and with that eager, restless expression which so often came into his face when standing over his work-bench in his little shop, baffled by some unsolved problem, he told her of his many anxieties lest some other brain groping along the same paths should reach the goal before him; how the Scientific Review, the one chronicle of the discoveries of the time, would often lie on his table for hours before he had the courage to open it and read the list of patents granted during the preceding months, adding, with a voice full of gentleness, "I was ashamed of it all, afterward, my dear, but Mrs. Horn became so anxious over our daily expenses, and so much depended on my success."
This brave pioneer did not realize, nor did she, that they were both valiant soldiers fighting the good fight of science and art against tradition and provincialism—part of that great army of progress which was steadily conquering the world!
As she listened in the darkening shadows, her hand in his, her fingers tight about his own, he, reading the sympathy of her touch, and fearing to have distressed her by his talk, had started up, and in his cheery, buoyant voice cried out:
"But it is all over now, my child. All past and gone. The work of my life is finished. There's plenty now for all of us. For my dear wife who has borne up so bravely and has never complained, and for you and Oliver. Your waiting need not be long, my dear. This last happiness which has come to me"—and he smoothed her hair gently with his thin hand and drew her closer to him—"seems the greatest of them all."
The two were seated in this way one afternoon, Margaret resting after a day's work, when Oliver opened the door. She had made a sketch of Richard's head that very morning as he lay back in a big chair, a strong, vigorous piece of work which she afterward finished.
Richard looked up and his face broke into a joyous smile.
"Bring a chair, my son," he cried, "and sit by me. I have something to say to you." When, a few moments later, Margaret had left the room to give some directions to Mrs. Mulligan, he added: "I have been telling Margaret that you both do wrong in putting off your marriage. These delays fret young people's lives away. She tells me it is your wish. What are you waiting for?"
"Only for money enough to take care of her, father. Madge has been accustomed to more comforts than I can give her. She would, I know, cheerfully give up half of her income, small as it is, to me if I would let her, but that is not the way I want to make her happy. Don't worry, dear old dad, the Fish portrait will pull us out"—and he leaned down and put his arms about his father's neck as he used to do when he was a boy. "I shall get there before long."
Oliver did not tell his father what a grief it had been to him to keep Madge waiting, nor how he had tried to make it up to her in every way while he had made his fight alone. Nor did he tell Richard of the principal cause of his waiting—that the mortgage to which his mother had pledged her name and to which he had morally pledged his own was still unpaid.
Richard listened to Oliver's outburst without interrupting him.