"Yes, I"ll be there nearly as soon as you will. Stop; you had better ride with me; I have something special to say." As the carriage started off, the Doctor leaned back in its cushions, folded his arms, and took a long, meditative breath. Richling glanced at him and said:--
"We"re both thinking of the same person."
"Yes," replied the Doctor; "and the same day, too, I suppose: the first day I ever saw her; the only other time that we ever got into this carriage together. Hmm! hmm! With what a fearful speed time flies!"
"Sometimes," said the yearning husband, and apologized by a laugh. The Doctor grunted, looked out of the carriage window, and, suddenly turning, asked:--
"Do you know that Reisen instructed his wife about six months ago, in the event of his death or disability, to place all her interests in your hands, and to be guided by your advice in everything?"
"Oh!" exclaimed Richling, "he can"t do that! He should have asked my consent."
"I suppose he knew he wouldn"t get it. He"s a cunning simpleton."
"But, Doctor, if you knew this"--Richling ceased.
"Six months ago. Why didn"t I tell you?" said the physician. "I thought I would, Richling, though Reisen bade me not, when he told me; I made no promise. But time, that you think goes slow, was too fast for me."
"I shall refuse to serve," said Richling, soliloquizing aloud. "Don"t you see, Doctor, the delicacy of the position?"
"Yes, I do; but you don"t. Don"t you see it would be just as delicate a matter for you to refuse?"
Richling pondered, and presently said, quite slowly:--
"It will look like coming down out of the tree to catch the apples as they fall," he said. "Why," he added with impatience, "it lays me wide open to suspicion and slander."
"Does it?" asked the Doctor, heartlessly. "There"s nothing remarkable in that. Did any one ever occupy a responsible position without those conditions?"
"But, you know, I have made some unscrupulous enemies by defending Reisen"s interests."
"Um-hmm; what did you defend them for?"
Richling was about to make a reply; but the Doctor wanted none.
"Richling," he said, "the most of men have burrows. They never let anything decoy them so far from those burrows but they can pop into them at a moment"s notice. Do you take my meaning?"
"Oh, yes!" said Richling, pleasantly; "no trouble to understand you this time. I"ll not run into any burrow just now. I"ll face my duty and think of Mary."
He laughed.
"Excellent pastime," responded Dr. Sevier.
They rode on in silence.
"As to"--began Richling again,--"as to such matters as these, once a man confronts the question candidly, there is really no room, that I can see, for a man to choose: a man, at least, who is always guided by conscience."
"If there were such a man," responded the Doctor.
"True," said John.
"But for common stuff, such as you and I are made of, it must sometimes be terrible."
"I dare say," said Richling. "It sometimes requires cold blood to choose aright."
"As cold as granite," replied the other.
They arrived at the bakery.
"O Doctor," said Mrs. Reisen, proffering her hand as he entered the house, "my poor hussband iss crazy!" She dropped into a chair and burst into tears. She was a large woman, with a round, red face and triple chin, but with a more intelligent look and a better command of English than Reisen. "Doctor, I want you to cure him a.s.s quick a.s.s possible."
"Well, madam, of course; but will you do what I say?"
"I will, certain shure. I do it yust like you tellin" me."
The Doctor gave her such good advice as became a courageous physician.
A look of dismay came upon her. Her mouth dropped open. "Oh, no, Doctor!" She began to shake her head. "I"ll never do tha-at; oh, no; I"ll never send my poor hussband to the crazy-house! Oh, no, sir; I"ll do not such a thing!" There was some resentment in her emotion. Her nether lip went up like a crying babe"s, and she breathed through her nostrils audibly.
"Oh, yes, I know!" said the poor creature, turning her face away from the Doctor"s kind attempts to explain, and lifting it incredulously as she talked to the wall,--"I know all about it. I"m not a-goin" to put no sich a disgrace on my poor hussband; no, indeed!" She faced around suddenly and threw out her hand to Richling, who leaned against a door twisting a bit of string between his thumbs. "Why, he wouldn"t go, nohow, even if I gave my consents. You caynt coax him out of his room yet. Oh, no, Doctor! It"s my duty to keep him wid me an" try to cure him first a little while here at home. That aint no trouble to me; I don"t never mind no trouble if I can be any help to my hussband." She addressed the wall again.
"Well, madam," replied the physician, with unusual tenderness of tone, and looking at Richling while he spoke, "of course you"ll do as you think best."
"Oh! my poor Reisen!" exclaimed the wife, wringing her hands.
"Yes," said the physician, rising and looking out of the window, "I am afraid it will be ruin to Reisen."
"No, it won"t be such a thing," said Mrs. Reisen, turning this way and that in her chair as the physician moved from place to place. "Mr.
Richlin","--turning to him,--"Mr. Richlin" and me kin run the business yust so good as Reisen." She shifted her distressed gaze back and forth from Richling to the Doctor. The latter turned to Richling:--
"I"ll have to leave this matter to you."
Richling nodded.
"Where is Reisen?" asked the Doctor. "In his own room, upstairs?" The three pa.s.sed through an inner door.
CHAPTER XLI.
MIRAGE.
"This spoils some of your arrangements, doesn"t it?" asked Dr. Sevier of Richling, stepping again into his carriage. He had already said the kind things, concerning Reisen, that physicians commonly say when they have little hope. "Were you not counting on an early visit to Milwaukee?"
Richling laughed.
"That illusion has been just a little beyond reach for months." He helped the Doctor shut his carriage-door.
"But now, of course--" said the physician.