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 passing,” 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 appetite.  He must recover twenty-five pounds of flesh that have left him since that cursed night of the Africa.

“Strange fate!” he ejaculates, 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.