So the day passed. The next morning Dr. Frank was obliged to return to the city, for his patients demanded his presence. He first had a consultation with the attending physician. Nothing remained for Mrs. Meeker but wearisome days and nights till death should release her, and all that a medical man could do was to make her as comfortable as possible.
There was a small room adjoining the one where Mrs. Meeker lay, which Hiram took possession of. It had a pleasant window looking out on the garden, and it contained a small cot bedstead, besides a table and chairs. Here Hiram spent most of his time busily occupied. By every mail he received letters from New York, detailing with minuteness just what took place in his affairs from day to day. In short, his private office was moved from New York to Hampton, and the only apparent inconvenience was that he did business at arm's length, as they say. Daily came a letter from Hill, although Hill was not in Hiram's counting room. Daily was an answer returned.
There was some one else who wrote Hiram just as regularly. Among the business letters, written in various hands and on various kinds of paper, could always be seen a small, neatly folded sheet, having a refined and delicate superscription. It was from Emma Tenant. She had forgotten all that was unpleasant and disagreeable in their last interview, on receiving her lover's hurried-looking scrawl, and, as if by a sudden rebound, her sympathies were roused to an extraordinary degree for 'poor Hiram—dear Hiram,' whom she 'treated so coldly' the last time they met. I need not say her notes were full of the most tender sympathy and condolence.
These letters bored Hiram exceedingly. The second day after reaching Hampton he had written Emma another of his hastily got up epistles, which contained just six lines, stating that he had found his mother in a dying condition, and was watching at her bedside. He did not intend to write again, but Emma's letters were so persistent that, despite his resolution, he did despatch two other notes, each more hasty and illegible and more distracted in tenor than the previous one. In fact the last had no signature at all.
At length Emma was so completely carried away by Hiram's distress, that she actually desired to proceed to Hampton, where she felt her presence would act like a balm to his sorrowful and bruised heart. Her mother, of course, would permit no such indiscreet step, so that Emma had to rest satisfied with writing long, loving letters.
Hiram, meantime, was not without his harmless recreations.
[All the town seemed to have been informed how devoted Hiram was to his sick mother. Nobody knew, however, of the secret of the little room adjoining, and of our hero's busy hours there.]
In the cool of the afternoon he would take a walk into the village. He called on his old master, Benjamin Jessup, who still maintained the opposition store as against the Smiths. Jessup was the same good-natured, jovial fellow as ever, but all token of familiarity died away when Hiram, entering his place, saluted him with the quiet air and manner of recognized superiority—yet, as you would say, pleasantly enough. The rich New York shipping merchant inspired the country storekeeper with awe.
Hiram enjoyed all this vastly, and talked amiably with Jessup about old times. He walked complacently over the village, stopping every few steps to have a word with his numerous acquaintances.
One afternoon, as he was taking his usual walk to the village, and had nearly reached it, he met a lady whom at first he did not recognize, but who appeared to know him from a distance.