Then Richling, with the unreasonableness of a convalescent, wanted to know why he couldn’t just as well go home. But the Doctor said again, no.
“Don’t be impatient; you’ll have to go anyhow before I would prefer to send you. It would be invaluable to you to pass your entire convalescence here, and go home only when you are completely recovered. But I can’t arrange it very well. The Charity Hospital is for sick people.”
“And where is the place for convalescents?”
“There is none,” replied the physician.
“I shouldn’t want to go to it, myself,” said Richling, lolling pleasantly on his pillow; “all I should ask is strength to get home, and I’d be off.”
The Doctor looked another way.
“The sick are not the wise,” he said, abstractedly. “However, in your case, I should let you go to your wife as soon as you safely could.” At that he fell into so long a reverie that Richling studied every line of his face again and again.
A very pleasant thought was in the convalescent’s mind the while. The last three days had made it plain to him that the Doctor was not only his friend, but was willing that Richling should be his.
At length the physician spoke:—
“Mary is wonderfully like Alice, Richling.”