She ceased coming at last. One of the sisters went out to see
her, and told him she was too weak to walk, but meant to be
better soon,--quite well by the holidays. He wished the poor
thing had told him what she wanted of him,--wished it anxiously,
with a dull presentiment of evil.
The days went by, cold and slow. He watched grimly the
preparations the hospital physician was silently making in his
case, for fever, inflammation.
"I must be strong enough to go out cured on Christmas eve," he
said to him one day, coolly.
The old doctor glanced up shrewdly. He was an old Alsatian, very
plain-spoken.
"You say so?" he mumbled. "Chut! Then you will go. There are
some--bull-dog, men. They do what they please,--they never die
unless they choose, begar! We know them in our practice, Herr
Holmes!"
Holmes laughed. Some acumen there, he thought, in medicine or
mind: as for himself, it was true enough; whatever success he had
gained in life had been by no flush of enthusiasm or hope; a
dogged persistence of "holding on," rather.
A long time; but Christmas eve came at last: bright, still,
frosty. "Whatever he had to do, let it be done quickly;" but not
till the set hour came. So he laid his watch on the table beside
him, waiting until it should mark the time he had chosen: the
ruling passion of self-control as strong in this turn of life's
tide as it would be in its ebb, at the last. The old doctor
found him alone in the dreary room, coming in with the frosty
breath of the eager street about him.
Pages:
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177