By and by, in spite of her fine physique, she fell ill. Overwork in the hurry of the spring trade, unhealthful quarters, lack of generous food, damp, cold, miserable weather, worry of mind and exhaustion of body, all combined to bring her down with typho-malarial fever. Her employers, appreciating her value to them, permitted her salary to run on, and almost forgave her for being ill when she was most needed, on condition that she employed another girl, less efficient, but ambitious, to attempt to fill her place, and largely fall short of doing so.
Typhoid fevers disorder the brain. The sick girl was seized with strange and vivid fancies. She longed for outdoor air and exercise. If she could only ride out again as she used when she was an heiress, upon her dainty tricycle, she knew she would soon be well and strong. But her wheel had disappeared with her piano and all the rest of the wreckage. So she lay fevered and in pain, and fancied herself following and hunting it down, she knew not where, and taking possession of it wherever found, and enjoying it. By some strange divination, she saw its owner—a young man—and grew familiar with his appearance in her sick fancy, even to the details of his dress. But, strangely, she could never hear the vision, though she knew by intuition and by his actions what he said sometimes. For more than a week these phantasms held her mind, to the alarm of the doctor, who pronounced her disease morbid and obstinate, and felt grave doubts of the result.
Then a strange thing happened. An unknown young gentleman called at the cottage door and insisted upon being admitted to see her, and his claims were backed by the doctor.
* * * * *
David Dewness was one of the most popular members of the bicycle club. When he first joined the club there was an amiable freshness about him that the club wits soon educated into an amiable ripeness. He was a fellow that would bear cultivation. He could take or give a joke with a pleasantness that disarmed everybody. But with his other qualities was a sweet obstinacy in certain directions. Nobody could ridicule him out of doing a kindness, however great the apparent folly. He would laugh as merrily as any of his critics over the foolishness of some of his good actions; but he would persist in doing them just the same.
Moreover, David carried what the club men called a level business head. In the club business affairs his judgment commanded respect. He earned a fair salary in a commission house, and was much trusted by the firm.
There was one of his investments, however, that the firm laughed at. Having saved a couple of hundred dollars about the time Dalrymple & Dalrymple failed, Dewness bought of that wreck forty acres of wild land, situated in the wilderness of mountain and swamp of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and nowhere near any of the then known mines. To be sure, the price he paid was only one hundred dollars; but his employers told him he might as wisely have thrown his hard-earned dollars into the river. David merely replied that he had always longed to be a landowner, and he had never had a cheaper chance to become one.
The truth was that he had once visited that region, and there he had heard an iron-mining explorer, while intoxicated, declare that he positively knew that there were rich beds of ore in the township where this forty acres lay. If iron should be discovered anywhere near his forty acres, he could sell at a large advance. Perhaps it might be found on his forty acres. In that case his fortune would be made. He knew the explorer to be one of the most expert and reliable of his strange class, and at the same time one of the most close-mouthed. Men of wealth believed the fellow to be full of valuable secrets; but he, like others, hoped that some day, in spite of his reckless gambling and drinking, he should possess means to use some of his secrets for himself, and not be forced to sell them for the advantage of others. David shrewdly thought he had surprised one of these secrets, and his hundred-dollar purchase was simply gambling on a frail chance. It was not much to lose; it might be very much to keep. So he kept it and his own counsel.
David had one foible—a common one. Like many a young man, he believed himself in love with a pretty girl, when he was really only in love with the idea of being loved. May Bentley was piquante, saucy, friendly, and heart-free. She liked David much, tyrannized over him more, was his good comrade always, and really loved him no more than he did her—that is, not at all. She simply loved having a lover—some one whom she could command and the other girls admire. Thus, there being no real and deep feeling between them, they got on admirably together, and were quoted by the aforesaid “other girls” as “just too happy for anything.” And yet the “other girls,” and likewise the club, very clearly knew that there wasn’t anything substantial in the supposed loves of Dewness and May Bentley. Though excellent friends, they would never be anything more, unless they should both make a dreadful mistake.
Being an enthusiastic wheelman, David often wished that he possessed a tricycle, upon which May could ride. What a pretty picture she would be, and what a charming companion! he on his bicycle and she on a tricycle, at the club “ladies’ runs.”