And, except for the release from pain, he rejoiced less and less in his
recovery. He remembered a tedious sickness of his childhood and how
beautiful he had thought the world, when he began to get well, how
electric the open air blowing in at the window, how green the smile of
earth, and how glorious to live and see the open day again. He had none of
that feeling now. No pretty vision came again near his bed, and he beheld
his convalescence as a mistake. He had come to a jumping-off place in his
life--why had they not let him jump? What was there left but the weary
plod, plod, and dust of years?
He could have gone back to Carlow in better spirit if it had not been for
the few dazzling hours of companionship which had transformed it to a
paradise, but, gone, left a desert. She, by the sight of her, had made him
wish to live, and now, that he saw her no more, she made him wish to die.
How little she had cared for him, since she told him she did not care,
when he had not meant to ask her. He was weary, and at last he longed to
find the line of least resistance and follow it; he had done hard things
for a long time, but now he wanted to do something easy. Under the new
genius--who was already urging that the paper should be made a daily--the
"Herald" could get along without him; and the "White-Caps" would bother
Carlow no longer; and he thought that Kedge Halloway, an honest man, if a
dull one, was sure to be renominated for Congress at the district
convention which was to meet at Plattville in September--these were his
responsibilities, and they did not fret him.
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