CHAPTER IX

A HEROIC ACT

David Lockwin is losing ground. He daily grows less likely to attract the favorable notice of Esther Lockwin, or any other woman of consequence. His face has not only lost comeliness, but character. It would seem that the carmen fimbrications just under the skin of his cheeks flame forth with renewed anger. The difficulty in his throat increases. He relies nowadays entirely on Corkey.

"And Corkey does not know how rapidly this anxiety is killing me!"

The druggist plans every day to confess all to Corkey. Every day, too, there is a plan to meet Esther. But as David Lockwin grows small, Esther grows grand. Talking with the servants of her mother's home has degraded, decla.s.sed, the husband. He has hungered to meet her, yet months intervene without that bitter joy.

It is a bitter joy. Yesterday, when Lockwin carried a prescription to the house of a very sick widow, he suddenly came face to face with Esther. It had been long apparent to the man that the woman was repelled by his face. This, yesterday, she did not conceal.

The husband trembled with a thousand pleasures as the sacred form pa.s.sed by. He struggled with ten thousand despairs as he was robbed of her company and left to bemoan her disdain.

He worshiped her the more. He read last night, more eagerly, how love endureth all things. It must fast come to this, that David Lockwin shall love her at a distance, and that she shall be true to the memory of the great and good David Lockwin.

Or, he must approach Corkey on the subject of his scheme of reunion.

This morning, washing the windows of the drug-store, the proprietor revolves the problems of his existence.

"Time is pa.s.sing," he groans; "too much time."

The gossip of the store deals often with Dr. Tarpion. Dr. Tarpion is gradually arousing the jealousy of the husband. The burning of the consolatory letters was a dreadful repulse of the lover's siege.

The druggist has scrubbed the windows with the brush. He is drying them with the rubber wiper. He stamps the pole on the sidewalk. He does not want to be jealous, but time is going by--time is going by.

That Tarpion! It would be hard! It would be hard!

A new thought comes. The disfigured face grows malicious.

"It would be bigamy! Ha!"

David Lockwin has fallen upon a low place. But he would perish if jealousy must be added.

"Corkey's plan is a good one, but why does he not push it faster? And Corkey has not spoken of the matter for three weeks. One night he said he would soon be 'where he could talk.'"

The prescription clerk is very busy. A customer wants a cigar. The druggist goes in to make a profit of three and a half cents. He returns to his window, wets it once more, begins the wiping, and is frightened by the thought of five millions of money.

"Davy's tonsils swelled, and Tarpion was to cut them off. I wonder if it is my tonsils. I wonder if my nose could be straightened. I have no doubt my skin could be cleared."

Once more the supporting forces of nature have come to the rescue of David Lockwin. It is clear that he must be rejuvenated. He must exercise and regain an appet.i.te. He must recover twenty-five pounds of flesh that have left him since that cursed night of the Africa.

"Strange fate!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.es, remembering the almost comatose condition in which he walked on deck, and was saved.

His eyes grow sightless. The dull, little, trivial street has palled upon his view. He sees a crowd gathering at a corner and making demonstrations in a cross street.

The next moment his own horses dash around the corner into State street, driverless and running away.

A lady's head protrudes from the window. Yes, it is Esther!

The druggist grasps his long pole lightly. He takes the middle of the street. He holds his pole like a fence before the team.

"Whoa, Pete! Whoa, Coley!" he cries.

The horses believe they must turn. They lose momentum. They shy. The man is at their bits.

They drag him along the curb. One horse slips down. The pole cracks in two. A hundred men are on hand now.

David Lockwin flies to the carriage. He unlocks the door. He gathers his wife in his arms. Oh! happy day! He carries her into his drug store. He applies restoratives to the fainting woman. She slowly revives.

"Please take me home and send for Dr. Tarpion," she says, relapsing into lethargy.

Men seize David Lockwin, for he is bleeding profusely.

"He terrifies her!" they exclaim. They wash his forehead. He has a long cut over the brow.

Work fast as he may with court-plaster Esther is carried forth before the druggist can be in front to aid. People are full of praise for the heroic man.

"But he won't be no prettier for it," say the gossips of the neighborhood.

CHAPTER X

ESTHER AS A LIBERAL PATRON

Esther Lockwin has been confined to her room for a month by Dr.

Tarpion's orders. The servants say she will not enter a carriage again.

David Lockwin has hired an extra clerk, and is daily under a surgeon's hands. After six months of suffering he is promised a removal of the red fimbrications; his nose shall be re-erected; his throat shall be reasonably cleared.

He lies on his cot, and Corkey is a frequent visitor.

"You wa'n't no prize beauty, that's a fact," says the candid Corkey.

"I think you're wise, but I'd never a did it. You've got as much grit as a tattooed man. Them fellers, the doctors, picks you with electric needles, don't they? Yes, I thought so. Well, I suppose that's nothing side of setting up your nose. But she sets up there like a hired man--you've got a good n.o.b now! Yes, I'm deep in politics again.

I'm a fool--I know it, but I don't spend more'n five hundred cases, and I go to the legislature sure. If I get there some of these corporations that knocked me out afore will squeal--you hear me! No, you don't spend no money on me. I wish you could git out and hustle, though. But you ain't no hustler, nohow. Want any drug laws pa.s.sed?"

Corkey must do the greater part of the talking. He sits beside the bed carrying an atmosphere of sympathy that the feverish lover needs.

Gradually the thoughts of the sympathizer fix on the gla.s.s graduate.

It tickles his membranes. His head quakes, his tongue whirs, he jars the great bottles outside with his sneeze.

The tears start from his eyes, his throat rebels at its misusage, his big red handkerchief comes out. It makes a sharp contrast with his jet black hair and mustache.

"Old man," he said, "do you suppose your bone-sawers could cut that out of me? It makes me forgit things sometimes. Oh, yes, yes! That puts me in mind! I came to tell you this morning that Mrs. Lockwin was coming over to thank you!"

"It's time," whispers the lover, bravely.

"I told her to come on. She needn't be afraid of you. I tell you she was mighty glad when I tell her you was a friend of mine."