“I dare say.”

Henry took his place at the supper-table.  It was set in the kitchen.  Sylvia was saving herself all the steps possible until Horace Allen returned.

Henry did not seem to have much appetite that night.  His face was overcast.  Along with his scarcely confessed exultation over his good-fortune he was conscious of an odd indignation.  For years he had cherished a sense of injury at his treatment at the hands of Providence; now he felt like a child who, pushing hard against opposition to his desires, has that opposition suddenly removed, and tumbles over backward.  Henry had an odd sensation of having ignominiously tumbled over backward, and he missed, with ridiculous rancor, his sense of injury which he had cherished for so many years.  After kicking against the pricks for so long, he had come to feel a certain self-righteous pleasure in it which he was now forced to forego.

Sylvia regarded her husband uneasily.  Her state of mind had formerly been the female complement of his, but the sense of possession swerved her more easily.  “What on earth ails you, Henry Whitman?” she said.  “You look awful down-in-the-mouth.  Only to think of our having enough to be comfortable for life.  I should think you’d be real thankful and pleased.”

“I don’t know whether I’m thankful and pleased or not,” rejoined Henry, morosely.

“Why, Henry Whitman!”

“If it had only come earlier, when we had time and strength to enjoy it,” said Henry, with sudden relish.  He felt that he had discovered a new and legitimate ground of injury which might console him for the loss of the old.

“We may live a good many years to enjoy it now,” said Sylvia.

“I sha’n’t; maybe you will,” returned Henry, with malignant joy.

Sylvia regarded him with swift anxiety.  “Why, Henry, don’t you feel well?” she gasped.

“No, I don’t, and I haven’t for some time.”

“Oh, Henry, and you never told me!  What is the matter?  Hadn’t you better see the doctor?”

“Doctor!” retorted Henry, scornfully.

“Maybe he could give you something to help you.  Whereabouts do you feel bad, Henry?”

“All over,” replied Henry, comprehensively, and he smiled like a satirical martyr.

“All over?”

“Yes, all over—­body and soul and spirit.  I know just as well as any doctor can tell me that I haven’t many years to enjoy anything.  When a man has worked as long as I have in a shoe-shop, and worried as much and as long as I have, good-luck finds him with his earthworks about worn out and his wings hitched on.”

“Oh, Henry, maybe Dr. Wallace—­”

“Maybe he can unhitch the wings?” inquired Henry, with grotesque irony.  “No, Sylvia, no doctor living can give medicine strong enough to cure a man of a lifetime of worry.”

“But the worry’s all over now, Henry.”

“What the worry’s done ain’t over.”