Hamilton had made no attempt to struggle when Knox caught him, but he now withdrew from the relaxing arms, and the Secretary of War left the room hastily. Hamilton, to Washington's astonishment, flung himself into a chair, and dropped his head on his arms. In a moment, he began to sob convulsively. A malignant fever was breeding in his depressed system; the blood still surged in his head. He had a despairing sense that his character was in ruins; he was humiliated to his depths; he despised himself so bitterly that he forgot the existence of Jefferson.
The humour and anger died out of Washington. He went forward hastily and locked the door. Then he stooped over Hamilton, and pressed him closely in his arms.
"My dear boy!" he said huskily. "My dear boy!"
XXXV
That was the last of Hamilton's battles in the Cabinet. Jefferson resigned; although, in order that the Administration might, until the crisis was past, preserve an unbroken front to the country, he reluctantly consented to withhold his resignation until the assembling of Congress. He retired to Monticello, however; and apologized to the Secretary of the Treasury.
Hamilton, almost immediately, was taken down with yellow fever, which broke out suddenly and raged with a fearful violence. To the ordinary odours of carcasses and garbage, were added those of vinegar, tar, nitre, garlic, and gunpowder. Every disinfectant America had ever heard of was given a trial, and every man who possessed a shot-gun fired it all day and all night. The bells tolled incessantly. The din and the smells were hideous, the death carts rattled from dawn till dawn; many were left unburied in their houses for a week; hundreds died daily; and the city confessed itself helpless, although it cleaned the streets. Hamilton had a very light attack, but Dr. Stevens dropped in frequently to see him; he privately thought him of more importance than all Philadelphia.
Lying there and thinking of many things, too grateful for the rest to chafe at the imprisonment, and striving for peace with himself, Hamilton one day conceived the idea of immersing yellow-fever patients in ice-water. Microbes were undiscovered, but Hamilton, perhaps with a flashing glimpse of the truth, reasoned that if cold weather invariably routed the disease, a freezing of the infected blood should produce the same result. He succeeded in convincing Stevens, with the issue that when the scourge was over, the young West Indian doctor had so many cures to his credit, where all other physicians had failed, that the City Council presented him with a silver tankard, gratefully inscribed, and filled with golden coins. Hamilton's fecund brain, scattering its creations, made more than one reputation.
Meanwhile, he awoke one day to find Mrs. Croix sitting beside his bed.
She had left town in June, and usually did not return until late in
September. She wore a white frock and a blue sash, and looked like an
angel about to do penance.
"I have come back to take care of the sick, including yourself," she announced, "I was born to be a nurse, and I felt that my place was here. I have come to see you first, and I shall call daily, but otherwise I am in Dr. Stevens's hands."
Hamilton stared at her. He was not surprised, for she was kind hearted in her erratic imperious fashion, and much beloved by the poor; nor was she afraid of anything under heaven. But she was the last person he had wished to see; she was for his triumphant hours, or his furious, not for helpless invalidism. He had longed consistently for his wife, and written to her by every packet-boat, lest she suspect his illness and return to the plague-stricken city. He was filled with a sudden resentment that any other woman should presume to fill her chair. To forget her under overwhelming provocation he had reconciled to his conscience with little difficulty, for his extenuations were many, and puritanism had not yet invaded the national character; but to permit another woman to ministrate to him when ill, he felt to be an unpardonable breach of his Eliza's rights, and his loyalty rebelled. So, although he treated Mrs. Croix with politeness while she remained, he gave orders to Dr. Stevens to keep her away upon any pretext he chose. "I am too nervous to be bothered with women," he added; and Stevens obeyed without comment.