a like opinion, and the two kind women met the two
men's obvious wish by leaving the room.

"Doctor," said Richling at once, "the last time you said it was
love-sickness; this time you say it's excitement; at the bottom it isn't
either. Will you please tell me what it really is? What is this thing
that puts me here on my back this way?"

"Richling," replied the Doctor, slowly, "if I tell you the honest truth,
it began in that prison."

The patient knit his hands under his head and lay motionless and
silent.

"Yes," he said, after a time. And by and by again: "Yes; I feared as
much. And can it be that my _physical_ manhood is going to fail me at
such a time as this?" He drew a long breath and turned restively in the
bed.

"We'll try to keep it from doing that," replied the physician. "I've
told you this, Richling, old fellow to impress upon you the necessity of
keeping out of all this hubbub,--this night-marching and mass-meeting
and exciting nonsense."

"And am I always--always to be blown back--blown back this way?" said
Richling, half to himself, half to his friend.

"There, now," responded the Doctor, "just stop talking entirely. No, no;
not always blown back. A sick man always thinks the present moment is
the whole boundless future. Get well. And to that end possess your soul
in patience. No newspapers. Read your Bible. It will calm you. I've been
trying it myself." His tone was full of cheer, but it was also so
motherly and the touch so gentle with which he put back the sick man's
locks--as if they had been a lad's--that Richling turned away his face
with chagrin.

"Come!" said the Doctor, more sturdily, laying his hand on the patient's
shoulder. "You'll not lie here more than a day or two. Before you know
it summer will be gone, and you'll be sending for Mary."

Richling turned again, put out a parting hand, and smiled with new
courage.

CHAPTER XLVII.

NOW I LAY ME--

Time may drag slowly, but it never drags backward. So the summer wore
on, Richling following his physician's directions; keeping to his work
only--out of public excitements and all overstrain; and to every day, as
he bade it good-by, his eager heart, lightened each time by that much,
said, "When you come around again, next year, Mary and I will meet you
hand in hand." This was _his_ excitement, and he seemed to flourish on
it.

But day by day, week by week, the excitements of the times rose. Dr.
Sevier was deeply stirred,