Then, promising to come again, he rode rapidly away, to visit other patients, who, that afternoon, were in danger of being sadly neglected, so constantly was their young physician’s mind dwelling upon the little, low-walled chamber where Maddy Clyde was lying. As night closed in she knew them all, and heard that Dr. Holbrook had been there prescribing for her. Turning her face to the wall, she seemed to be thinking; then, calling her grandmother to her, she whispered: “Did he smooth my hair back and say, ‘poor child?’”
Her grandmother hardly thought he did, though she was not in the room all the time, she said. “He had stayed a long while and was greatly interested.”
Maddy had a vague remembrance of such an incident, and in her heart forgave the doctor for his rejection, thinking only how handsome he had looked, even while tormenting her with such unheard of questions, and how kind he was to her now. The sight of her grandfather awakened a new train of ideas, and bidding him to sit beside her, she asked if their home must be sold. Maddy was not to be put off with an evasion, and so grandpa told her honestly at last that Slocum would foreclose, but not while she was sick; he had been seen that day by Mr. Green, and had promised so much forbearance.
This was the last rational conversation held with Maddy for many a week, and when next morning the doctor came, there was a look of deep anxiety upon his face as he watched the alarming symptoms of his delirious patient, who talked incessantly, not of the examination now, but of the mortgage and the foreclosure, begging the doctor to see that the house was not sold, to tell them she was earning thirty-six dollars by teaching school, that Beauty should be sold to save their dear old home. All this was strange at first to the doctor, but the rather voluble Mrs. Green, who had come to Grandma Markham’s relief, enlightened him, dwelling with a kind of malicious pleasure upon the fact that Maddy’s earnings, had she been permitted to get a “stifficut,” were to be appropriated toward paying the debt.
If the doctor had hated himself the previous day when he from the red cottage gate, he hated himself doubly now as he went dashing down the road, determined to resign his office of school inspector that very day. And he did.
Summoning around him those who had been most active in electing him, he refused to officiate again, assuring them that if any more candidates came he should either turn them from his door or give them a certificate without asking a question.
“Put anybody you like in my place,” he said; “anybody but Guy Remington. Don’t for thunder’s sake take him.”
There was no probability of this, as Guy lived in another town, and could not have officiated had he wished. But the doctor was too much excited to reason upon anything save Madeline Clyde’s case. That he perfectly understood; and during the next few weeks his other patients waited many times in vain for his coming, while he sat by Maddy’s side watching every change, whether for the worse or better. Even Agnes Remington was totally neglected; and so one day she sent Guy down to Devonshire to say that as Jessie seemed more than usually delicate, she wished the doctor to take her under his charge and visit her at least once a week. The doctor was not at home, but Tom said he expected him every moment. So seating himself in the armchair, Guy waited until he came.
“Well, Hal,” he began, jocosely, but the joking words he would have uttered next died on his lips as he noticed the strange look of excitement and anxiety on the doctor’s face. “What is it?” he asked. “Are all your patients dead?”
“Guy,” and the doctor came closely to him, whispering huskily, “you and I are murderers in the first degree. Yes; and both deserve to be hung. Do you remember that Madeline Clyde whom you insulted with your logic and Latin verbs? She’d set her heart on that certificate. She wanted the money, not for new gowns and fooleries mind, but to help her old grandfather pay his debts. His place is mortgaged. I don’t understand it; but he asked some old hunks to lend him the money, and the miserly rascal, whoever he was, refused. I wish I had it. I’d give it to him out and out. But that’s nothing to do with the girl—Maddy they call her. The disappointment killed her, and she’s dying—is raving crazy—and keeps talking of that confounded examination. I tell you, Guy, my inward parts get terribly mixed up when I hear her talk, and my heart thumps like a trip-hammer. That’s the reason I have not been up to Aikenside. I wouldn’t leave Maddy so long as there was hope. I did not tell them this morning. I couldn’t make that poor couple feel worse than they are feeling; but when I looked at her, tossing from side to side and picking at the bedclothes, I knew it would soon be over—that when I saw her again the poor little arms would be still enough and the bright eyes shut forever. Guy, I couldn’t see her die—I don’t like to see anybody die, but her, Maddy, of all others—and so I came away. If you stay long enough, you’ll hear the bell toll, I reckon. There is none at Honedale Church, which they attend. They are Episcopalians, you see, and so they’ll come up here, maybe. I hope I shall be deafer than an adder.”