"Indeed, Mr. Hammond, there is no need for you to do anything more—no necessity for calling in a physician. I am quite comfortable now, and shall be well by morning."
Mr. Hammond, who was a director in the bank, and sincerely honored the honest veteran now prostrated by his devoted performance of duty, took the hot, tremulous hand in his.
"I cannot allow you to peril your valuable health, my dear sir. Unless you positively forbid it, I shall not only call your physician, but drop in again myself this evening, and satisfy my mind as to whether you require my presence through the night."
He was as good as his word; but no amount of persuasion could induce Mr. Hunt to accept his offered watch. He would be "uneasy, unhappy, if his young friend sacrificed his own rest so uselessly," and loath as he was to leave him to solitude and suffering, Mr. Hammond had to yield. At his morning visit, he found the patient more tractable. After tedious hours of fevered wakefulness, he had endeavored to rise, only to sink back again upon his pillow—dizzy, sick, and now thoroughly alarmed at the state of his system. He did not combat his friend's proposal to obtain a competent nurse, and to look in on him in person as often as practicable; still, utterly refused to allow his wife to be written to on the subject of his indisposition.
"I shall be better in a day or two, probably before she could reach me. I have never had a spell of illness. It is not likely that this will be anything of consequence. I greatly prefer that she should not be apprised of this attack."
Mr. Hammond was resolute on his part—the more determined, when the physician had paid another visit, and pronounced the malady a low fever, that would, doubtless, confine the sick man to his bed for several days, if not weeks.
"It is not just to your wife and children, Mr. Hunt, to keep them in ignorance of so important a matter!" he urged. "They will have cause to feel themselves aggrieved by you, and ill-treated by me, if we practice this deception upon them."
Mr. Hunt lay quiet for some minutes.
"Perhaps you are in the right," he said. "Sarah would be wounded, I know. I will send for her!" he concluded, with more animation. "She will come as soon as she receives the letter."
"Of course she will!" rejoined Mr. Hammond, confidently; "you are not able to write. Suffer me to be your amanuensis." He sat down at a stand, and took out his pen. "Where is Mrs. Hunt at present?"