“I can’t, doctor, my wife is expecting me, and will be anxious till I get home. Walk part of the way with me.”
The kindly little doctor walked along with him.
“You can’t go on like this, Maynard; you will never do any good with this little brute of a cousin of yours. Your wife, too, is getting thinner and paler. The wear and anxiety are too much for her.”
“Do you think I don’t see it, Morgan?” Frank exclaimed, passionately; “I do nothing but think of it. I don’t care for the work, hard as it is; but it’s the thought of her sitting there alone all the day. I’ve been thinking to-day, I must make an end of it. I can’t stand it any longer. I shall kill that fellow. I was nearly breaking out to-day. The only thing is, he’s afraid of me now. He knows he’s gone too far. He comes down and blows up; but he daren’t say a word to me. He’s no fool, and he knows that if he gave me a chance—just a chance, I would thrash him to within an inch of his life before the men; ay, and I would, too. It’s as much as I can do to keep my fingers still when I see him coming.”
“I wish he’d break his neck,” said the doctor; “but I’d rather he did it himself than that you should do it for him. I tell you who I pity more than I do you, Maynard.”
“Who’s that, doctor?”
“His wife. Poor thing, she won’t last long; and it will be a merciful release for her.”
“Ay, indeed,” Frank said; “I have heard of entertaining an angel unawares, but if ever a woman married a devil unawares, she did.”
“Well, Maynard, I must turn back. My patients will be wanting me. Keep your heart up, man, and get out of this as soon as you can.”
“I will,” Frank said to himself, as he strode on in the darkness. “No one can say I have not stuck to it like a man. It’s nearly two years since I came down. By Jove, it seems to me I have been here an age. I’ll tell Katie to-night that I give it up. Australia will be a joke to this. Thank God, here I am home.”