But to think that Esther has not read a word of all he has written! David Lockwin hisses the name of Dr. Tarpion. Many is the time they have tented together. But how did the doctor know? He had only a type-written anonymous communication.
Nevertheless this lover curses the administrator as the cause of the fiasco.
"But for him my path would be easy."
David Lockwin thinks of Tarpion's threat about a claimant. It grows clear to him that there is a Chicagoan alive who can view his own cenotaph, his own memorial hospital, his own home--who can proclaim himself to be the husband, and yet there will be men like Tarpion who will deny all.
Lockwin's face annoys him. "Why was I such a fool to go without the proper treatment in that outlandish region! Why was I so anxious to be disguised?"
Oh, it is all on account of the letters. That busybody of an administrator and censor has undone all! Better he had never been born. Why should a doctor neglect his patients to separate husband and wife? The wise way will be to march to the house at Chicago and take possession.
"That I will do!" the man at last declares. He is maddened. He cares nothing for reputation. He cannot bear the thought that Dr. Tarpion, an old friend, should day by day burn the epistles that evinced so much scholarship, charity and sympathy. The lover is not poor. No man with $7,000 in his pocket is poor. He is not driven back to Esther by want, as it was before. That stings the man to recall it. No, he has means. But if he were poor, he would work for the dear lady who loved him so secretly. He gloats over the letter of Esther. It is worn in pieces now, like so many cards. The train from New York enters the city of Chicago.
"That is the new David Lockwin Hospital," says a passenger.
"Why did I blunder in on this road?" the lover asks. He had not thought his situation so terrible as it seemed just now.
"I am doubtless the sorriest knave that ever lived here," he mourns, but it only increases his determination to go directly to Esther.