It was just such a letter as would have sent him to her, before his realization of the illness.... He saw her torture to be kind, and yet not to lift his hopes. It was different from Fallows’, in that it fitted exactly to what he now knew about himself. And he had to believe from the pages that she loved him. There was an eternal equality to that.... The air seemed full of service. Two letters from his finest human relations, each stirring him to service. He did not see this just now with the touch of bitterness that might have flavored it all another time.... What was there about him that made them think of him so? If they only knew how meager and tainted so much of his thinking was. Some men can never make the world see how little they are.
He wrote to Betty Berry. Calm came to him, and much the best moments that he had known in the three days. He was apt to be a bit lyrical as a letter-lover—he whose words were so faltering face to face with the woman. Thoughts of the play came to his writing. He was really in touch with himself again. He would never lose that. He would work every day. When a man’s work comes well—he can face anything.... The play was begun the fourth day, and, on the fifth, another letter from Betty Berry. This was almost all about his work. She had seized upon this subject, and her letters lifted his inspiration. She could share his work. There was real union in that....
He was forgetting his devil for an hour at a time. There were moments of actual peace and well-being. He did not suffer more than the pain he had been accustomed to so long. And then, a real spring day breathed over the hill.
That morning, without any heat of producing, and without any elation from a fresh letter from the woman, he found that in his mind to say aloud:
“I’m ready for what comes.”
By a really dramatic coincidence, within ten minutes after this fruitage of fine spirit, John Morning found an old unopened envelope from Nevin, the little doctor of the Sickles. He had recalled some data on Liaoyang while inspecting the morning—something that might prove valuable for the play, in the old wallet he had carried afield. Looking for this in the moulded leather, he found the letter Nevin had left in the Armory, before departing—just a little before Betty Berry came that day.... Nevin had not come back. But Noyes and Field had come.
Morning remembered that Nevin had spoken that morning of finding something for the wound that would not heal.... The remedy was Chinese. The Doctor knew of its existence, but had procured the name with great difficulty in the Chinese quarter.... Morning was to fast ten days while taking the treatment.
He went about it with a laugh. The message had renewed his deep affection for Nevin. It had come forth from the hidden place where Nevin now toiled, (secretly trying, doubtless, to cover every appearance of his humanity).... He remembered how Nevin had studied the wound that refused to heal. The last thing had been his report on that. When there was nothing more to be offered but felicities—he had vanished.
Morning did not leap into any expectancy that he was to be healed, but thoughts of Nevin gave him another desire after the play and the book—to trace the great-hearted little man before the end. Nevin would be found somewhere out among the excessive desolations. If it may be understood, the idea of mortal sickness remained in Morning’s mind at this time, mainly as a barrier between him and Betty Berry.