Events followed of which we have already taken knowledge. Mary, we have seen, fell sick and was taken to the hospital.
“I shall go mad!” Richling would moan, with his dishevelled brows between his hands, and then start to his feet, exclaiming, “I must not! I must not! I must keep my senses!” And so to the commercial regions or to the hospital.
Dr. Sevier, as we know, left word that Richling should call and see him; but when he called, a servant—very curtly, it seemed to him—said the Doctor was not well and didn’t want to see anybody. This was enough for a young man who hadn’t his senses. The more he needed a helping hand the more unreasonably shy he became of those who might help him.
“Will nobody come and find us?” Yet he would not cry “Whoop!” and how, then, was anybody to come?
Mary returned to the house again (ah! what joys there are in the vale of tribulation!), and grew strong,—stronger, she averred, than ever she had been.
“And now you’ll not be cast down, will you?” she said, sliding into her husband’s lap. She was in an uncommonly playful mood.
“Not a bit of it,” said John. “Every dog has his day. I’ll come to the top. You’ll see.”
“Don’t I know that?” she responded, “Look here, now,” she exclaimed, starting to her feet and facing him, “I’ll recommend you to anybody. I’ve got confidence in you!” Richling thought she had never looked quite so pretty as at that moment. He leaped from his chair with a laughing ejaculation, caught and swung her an instant from her feet, and landed her again before she could cry out. If, in retort, she smote him so sturdily that she had to retreat backward to rearrange her shaken coil of hair, it need not go down on the record; such things will happen. The scuffle and suppressed laughter were detected even in Mrs. Riley’s room.
“Ah!” sighed the widow to herself, “wasn’t it Kate Riley that used to get the sweet, haird knocks!” Her grief was mellowing.
Richling went out on the old search, which the advancing summer made more nearly futile each day than the day before.