Susie listened to the doctor, but could not tell him just then that Dan had sent more, having stubbornly determined to refuse it, as she had the first; but she would consult Clara first. Seeing her silent, the doctor said:
“‘Is there confusion in the little isle?
Let what is broken so remain.’
“See! I am romantic, too. I also quote Tennyson. You’ve borne up bravely, Susie, these last days, and by and by all will be right. I am going to find you a place with some patient of mine, as near here as possible.” Susie’s face beamed at this. She felt that she could not possibly stay much longer in the doctor’s house, for she knew how Mrs. Forest felt toward her. He left her no time to thank him before he added, “I trust you are cultivating a healthy contempt for your rascally lover?”
“Do you think he will never, never care for Susie any more?” she asked. “See! he commences even this letter ‘Dear Susie,’” and she looked up inquiringly to the doctor, who answered, after a long pause:
“What dry husks a hungry heart will feed upon! Pitiful, pitiful!” and the doctor uttered a heavy sigh. “Why, no; he cares nothing for you beyond a feeling of pity, which no one could possibly withhold who had any natural feeling. I say this because the sooner you give up all hope that his disaffection is an accident, the better it will be for you.”
“Yet only so little while ago he told me I was all the world to him.”
“And he wrote you often, didn’t he?”
“Yes. Sometimes twice a day,” said Susie, smiling through her tears.
“Well, when he did that he was in love. There is no sign of that delectable state, so constant. You may lay it down as a law, if a man loves he writes, and simply because he cannot avoid doing so. He must be governed by the strongest impulse. When he is writing he does not know when to stop, for being away from an object that strongly attracts him, writing is the most effective solace. In fact, the amount a lover writes is a very good barometer of the pressure he is under from his passion.”