"So you didn't tell him anything about the New York trip?"
"No, I didn't exactly know what your views might be, and he looked such a worn-out, pitiful object that I held my tongue about it. I think you had better see him and hear what he has to say."
It appeared that Savareen had arrived at Millbrook by the 4:15 p.m. train from New York, and that he had slunk round by the least frequented streets to his father-in-law's house without being recognised by any one. It might be doubted, indeed, whether any of his old friends would have recognised him, even if they had met him face to face in broad daylight, for he was by no means the ruddy, robust, self-complacent looking personage they had been accustomed to see in the old days when he was wont to ride into town on his black mare. His clothes were seamy and worn, and his physical proportions had shrunk so much that the shabby garments seemed a world too wide for him. His face, which three months ago had been bloated and sodden, had become pale and emaciated, and the scar upon his left cheek seemed to have developed until it was the most noticeable thing about him. His step was feeble and tremulous, and it was evident that his health had completely broken down. He was in fact in a state bordering on collapse, and was hardly fit to be going about. His financial condition was on a par with his bodily state. He had expended his last dime in the purchase of his railway ticket, and at the moment of reaching his father-in-law's door he had been well-nigh famished for want of food. When a loaf of bread and some slices of cold meat had been set before him, he had fallen to with the voracity of a jungle tiger. He had vouchsafed no explanation of his presence, except that he felt he was going to die, and that he wanted to see his wife and child. As he was tired out and sorely in need of rest, he had been put to bed, and his father-in-law, after seeing him snugly stowed away between the sheets, had set out to bear the news to his wife.
There could be no doubt as to what was the proper thing to be done. Mrs. Savareen made the fire safe, put on her bonnet and shawl and locked up the house. Then, taking her little boy by the hand, she accompanied her father to the old house where, six or seven years before, the handsome young farmer had been in the habit of visiting and paying court to her. On arriving she found the invalid buried in the deep, profound sleep of exhaustion. Consigning her boy to the care of her stepmother, she took her place by the bedside and waited. Her vigil was a protracted one, for the tired-out sleeper did not awaken until the small hours of the next morning. Then with a long drawn respiration, he opened his eyes, and fixed them upon the watcher with a weak, wandering expression, as though he was unable to fully grasp the situation.
The truth found its way to him by degrees. He shifted himself uneasily, as though he would have been glad to smother himself beneath the bedclothes, was it not for lack of resolution. A whipped hound never presented a more abject appearance.
His wife was the first to speak. "Do you feel rested?" she asked in a gentle tone.
"Rested? O, yes, I remember now. We are at your father's."
"Yes; but don't talk any more just now, if it tires you. Try to go to sleep again."
"You are good to me; better than I deserve," he responded, after a pause. Then great tears welled up to his eyes, and coursed one after another down his thin, worn face. It was easy to see that he was weak as water. His long journey by rail without food had been too much for him, and in his state of health it was just possible he might never rally.
The womanly nature of the outraged wife came uppermost, as it always does under such circumstances. Her love for the miserable creature lying there before her had been killed and crucified long ago, never to be revived. But she could not forget that she had once loved him, and that he was the father of her child. No matter how deeply he had wronged her, he was ill and suffering—perhaps dying. His punishment had come upon him without any act of hers. She contrasted his present bearing with that of other days. He was bent, broken, crushed. Nothing there to remind her of the stalwart, manly young fellow whose voice had once stirred her pulse to admiration and love. All the more reason why she should be good to him now, all undeserving as he might be. Our British Homer showed a true appreciation of the best side of feminine nature when he wrote—