CHAPTER III.
ONE FOR LIFE.
“And doth not a meeting like this make amends
For all the long years I’ve been wand’ring away?”—Anon.
A noble, handsome fellow was Rolfe Heywood, and though the suffering stranger guest was neither forgotten nor neglected, “joy crowned the board” at Sweetbrier upon his return, and the weeks that followed were full of quiet happiness to himself, parents, and sister.
He was succeeding well in the new State of his adoption, and hoped to persuade these dear ones to join him there at some not very distant day.
He took a benevolent interest in the sick woman, and rejoiced with the others when the physician pronounced the crisis of the disease past and the patient in a fair way to recover.
“She’s come to her full senses now, and there ain’t no doing anything with her,” announced the nurse a few days later, looking in at the open door of the room where the family were at breakfast. “Not a morsel of food will she take, not a drop of medicine will she swallow. She just lays there with her eyes shut, and every once in a while I see a big tear a-rollin’ down them thin, white cheeks o’ hern.”
She withdrew with the last words, and while finishing their meal the family held a consultation on the case.