“Well, I do watch him,” thought the Doctor. “I’ve only lost sight of him once in a while.” But the thought seemed to find an echo against his conscience, and when it floated back it was: “I’ve only caught sight of him once in a while.” The banker’s words came up again: “Don’t put the poor fellow into your debt and at your back.” “Just what you’ve done,” said conscience. “How do you know he isn’t drowned?” He would see to it.
While he was still on his way to the hotel he fell in with an acquaintance, a Judge Somebody or other, lately from Washington City. He, also, lodged at the St. Charles. They went together. As they approached the majestic porch of the edifice they noticed some confusion at the bottom of the stairs that led up to the rotunda; cabmen and boys were running to a common point, where, in the midst of a small, compact crowd, two or three pairs of arms were being alternately thrown aloft and brought down. Presently the mass took a rapid movement up St. Charles street.
The judge gave his conjecture: “Some poor devil resisting arrest.”
Before he and the Doctor parted for the night they went to the clerk’s counter.
“No letters for you, Judge; mail failed. Here is a card for you, Doctor.”
The Doctor received it. It had been furnished, blank, by the clerk to its writer.
John Richling.
At the door of his own room, with one hand on the unturned knob and one holding the card, the Doctor stopped and reflected. The card gave no indication of urgency. Did it? It was hard to tell. He didn’t want to look foolish; morning would be time enough; he would go early next morning.
But at daybreak he was summoned post-haste to the bedside of a lady who had stayed all summer in New Orleans so as not to be out of this good doctor’s reach at this juncture. She counted him a dear friend, and in similar trials had always required close and continual attention. It was the same now.
Dr. Sevier scrawled and sent to the Richlings a line, saying that, if either of them was sick, he would come at their call. When the messenger returned with word from Mrs. Riley that both of them were out, the Doctor’s mind was much relieved. So a day and a night passed in which he did not close his eyes.