The letter was just like Lucy, and Guy, while reading it, felt how good she was. Of course, he might teach Maddy Clyde all he wished to teach her, and it made Lucy love him better to know that he was willing to do such things. She wished she was there to help him: they would open a school for all the poor, but she did not know when her mother would let her come. That pain in her side was not any better, and her cough had come earlier this season than last. The physician had advised a winter in Naples, and they were going before very long. It would be pleasant there, no doubt, only she should be farther away from her Guy, but she would think of him, oh! so often, teaching that dear little Maddy Clyde, and she should pray for him, too, just as she always did. Then followed a few more lines sacred to the lover’s eye, lines which told how pure was the love which sweet Lucy Atherstone bore for Guy Remington, who, as he read, felt his heart beat with a throb of pain, for Lucy spoke to him now for the first time of what might possibly be in store for them.
“I’ve dreamed about it nights,” she said, “I’ve thought about it days, and tried so hard to be reconciled; to feel that if God will have it so, I am willing to die before you have ever called me your wife, or I have ever called you husband. Heaven is better than earth, I know, and I am sure of going there, I think; but, oh! dear Guy, a life with you looks so very sweet, that I sometimes shrink from the dark grave, which would hide me forever from you. Guy, you once said you never prayed, and it made me feel so badly, but you will, when you get this, won’t you? You will ask God to make me well, and maybe he will hear you. Do, Guy, please pray for your Lucy, far away over the sea.”
Guy could not resist that touching appeal, and though his lips were all unused to prayer, he bowed his head upon his hands and asked that she might live, beseeching the Father to send upon him any calamity save this one—Lucy must not die. Guy felt better for having prayed. It was something to tell Lucy, something that would please her, and though his heart yet was very sad, a part of the load was lifted, and he could think of Lucy now, without the bitter pain her letter first had cost him. Was there nothing that would save her, nobody who could cure her? Her disease was not hereditary; surely it might be made to yield. Had English physicians no skill? would not an American do better? It was possible, and if Lucy’s mother would let her come where doctors were skillful, she might get well; but she was determined that no husband should be burdened with an ailing wife, and so, if the mountain would not come to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain; and Guy fairly leaped from his chair as he exclaimed, “I have it—there’s Doc!—he’s the most skillful man I ever knew; I’ll send him to England; send him to the Atherstones; he shall go to Naples with them as their family physician; he can cure Lucy; I’ll speak to him the very next time he comes here;” and with another burden lifted from his mind, Guy began to wonder where Maddy was, and why the day had been so long.
He knew she had returned, for Flora had said she brought the letter, and he was about going out, in hopes of finding her and Jessie, when he heard her in the hall, as she answered some question of Mrs. Noah’s; stepping to the door, he asked her to come in, saying he would, if she chose, appoint the lessons talked about so long. Ordinarily, Maddy’s eyes would have flashed with delight, for she had anticipated so much from these lessons; now, however, there was a sad look upon her face, and she could scarcely keep from crying as she came at Guy’s bidding, and sat upon the sofa, near his arm-chair. Somehow it rested Guy to look at Maddy Clyde, who, having recovered from her illness, seemed the very embodiment of perfect health, a health which glowed and sparkled all over her bright face; showing itself as well in the luxuriance of her glossy hair as in the brilliancy of her complexion, and the flash of her lustrous eyes. How Guy wished that Lucy could share in what seemed almost a superfluity of health; and why shouldn’t she? Dr. Holbrook had cured Maddy; Dr. Holbrook could cure Lucy; and so for the present dismissing Lucy from his mind, he turned to Maddy, and said the time had come when he could give those promised lessons, and asked if she would commence to-morrow, after she was through with Jessie, and what she would prefer to take up first.
“Oh, Mr. Remington,” and Maddy began to cry, “I am afraid I cannot stay! they need me at home, or may need me. Grandpa said so, and I don’t want to go, though I know it’s wicked not to; oh, dear, dear!”
Here Maddy broke down entirely, sobbing so convulsively that Guy became alarmed, and wondered what he ought to do to quiet her. As she sat the bowed head was just within his reach, and he very naturally laid his hand upon it, and, as if it had been Jessie’s, smoothed the silken hair, while he asked why she must go home? Had anything occurred to make her presence more necessary than it was at Aikenside?
Controlling her voice as well as she was able, Maddy told him that the physicians at the asylum had written that as Uncle Joseph would in all human probability never be perfectly sane, and as a change of scene would do him good, it might be well for Mr. Markham to take him to Honedale awhile; that having been spoken with upon the subject, he seemed as anxious as a little child, even crying when the night came round and he was not at home, as he expressed it. “They have kept him so long,” Maddy said, “that grandpa thought it his duty to relieve them, though he can’t well afford it; and so he’s coming next week, and grandma will need some one to help, and I must go. I know it’s wrong, but I do not want to go, try as I will.”
It was a gloomy prospect to exchange Aikenside for the humble home where poverty had its abode, and it was not very strange that Maddy should shrink from it at first. She did not stop to ask what was her duty, or think how much happiness her presence might give her grandparents, or how much she might cheer and amuse the imbecile, her uncle. She was but human, and so when Guy began to devise ways of preventing her going, she listened, while the pain at her heart grew less as her faith in Guy grew stronger. He would drive down with her to-morrow, he said, and see what could be done. Meanwhile she must dry her eyes and go to Jessie, who was calling her.
As Guy had half expected, the doctor came round that evening, and inviting him into his private room, Guy proceeded at once to unfold his scheme, asking him first:
“How much he probably received a year for his services as physician.”