"Well—it—won't happen!" he answered fiercely. "It can't happen now——"
"I don't think it will myself, if you can keep at its highest tension the desire to live. That's the magic thing that works the miracle of life in such cases. It makes food digest, sends red blood to the tips of the slenderest finger and builds up the weak places. Don't forget this, my boy. Make her love life, desperately and passionately, until the will to live dominates both soul and body."
"I'll do it," was the firm answer, as he grasped the doctor's outstretched hand in parting.
He withdrew completely from his political work. A Speaker pro tem presided daily over the deliberations of the House, and an assistant editor took charge of the paper.
The wife gently urged him to give part of his time to his work again.
"No," he responded firmly and gayly. "The doctor says you have a chance to get well. I'd rather see the roses in your cheeks again than be the President of the United States."
She drew his head down and clung to him with desperate tenderness.