He and Dinah were in a state of perpetual and continual combat, from his rising to his sleeping. It seemed to him there was never such another babe as that; he could not trust Dinah to care for it. All his boyish plans for the future were changed, and everything was gauged by "when sister is big enough." He insisted that she should be named for his mother;—the dearest name in the world to him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
During Clarissa's illness, William devoted all the available time he could find to the study of the book she had brought him. He had many interruptions, for Augustus appealed to his father in his altercations with Dinah, when they were too severe for him to conquer by might of his own will.
There were many visitors, who came to inquire the health of Clarissa and her babe. Clarissa seemed very nervous if William was long away, so he did most of his reading near her. She said this uncontrollable desire to know he was close beside her arose from the mental suffering she had endured from his absence when Augustus was born. She suffered keenly then, and the same conditions brought similar sensations. She was perfectly satisfied to remain quiet if she saw him present, but if he remained long from her, she was pursued by fears and thoughts that she would not tell even him.
In her weakened condition, they quickly showed themselves in her physical depletion. She was annoyed at her weakness, but her sufferings were none the less acute because she knew that they were visionary.
She was not a weak woman in any sense of the word, but just now her husband's presence furnished her a sense of security; his absence brought weakness. The fact she had had no long or severe confinement made it still harder to account for her subsequent nervousness.
Doctors Baxter and Harrington had for some time been trying to get William to perform an experiment in psychology for them. He put them off from time to time by different excuses, because he was unwilling to leave Clarissa for a long enough time, knowing her confinement was near. Not having been with her at the time of Augustus' birth, and having no experience in such cases, he was more concerned about it than he would admit.
After her easy and well nigh painless delivery, he felt so relieved the next day but one, he went with them. He was gone almost the entire day, as the physicians asked him to visit a patient of each, who was suffering from nervous troubles, which eluded their powers, and which they felt he could relieve. They were situated at quite a distance one from the other, so it consumed considerable time to visit them.