“Yes?” responded Richling, rather timidly. And the Doctor continued:—
“The same age, the same stature, the same features. Alice was a shade paler in her style of beauty, just a shade. Her hair was darker; but otherwise her whole effect was a trifle quieter, even, than Mary’s. She was beautiful,—outside and in. Like Mary, she had a certain richness of character—but of a different sort. I suppose I would not notice the difference if they were not so much alike. She didn’t stay with me long.”
“Did you lose her—here?” asked Richling, hardly knowing how to break the silence that fell, and yet lead the speaker on.
“No. In Virginia.” The Doctor was quiet a moment, and then resumed:—
“I looked at your wife when she was last in my office, Richling; she had a little timid, beseeching light in her eyes that is not usual with her—and a moisture, too; and—it seemed to me as though Alice had come back. For my wife lived by my moods. Her spirits rose or fell just as my whim, conscious or unconscious, gave out light or took on shadow.” The Doctor was still again, and Richling only indicated his wish to hear more by shifting himself on his elbow.
“Do you remember, Richling, when the girl you had been bowing down to and worshipping, all at once, in a single wedding day, was transformed into your adorer?”
“Yes, indeed,” responded the convalescent, with beaming face. “Wasn’t it wonderful? I couldn’t credit my senses. But how did you—was it the same”—
“It’s the same, Richling, with every man who has really secured a woman’s heart with her hand. It was very strange and sweet to me. Alice would have been a spoiled child if her parents could have spoiled her; and when I was courting her she was the veriest little empress that ever walked over a man.”
“I can hardly imagine,” said Richling, with subdued amusement, looking at the long, slender form before him. The Doctor smiled very sweetly.
“Yes.” Then, after another meditative pause: “But from the moment I became her husband she lived in continual trepidation. She so magnified me in her timid fancy that she was always looking tremulously to me to see what should be her feeling. She even couldn’t help being afraid of me. I hate for any one to be afraid of me.”