CHAPTER XII

VIEWLESS FETTERS

Although Mr. Jocelyn had retired so early and slept heavily until an hour that at the farmhouse was late, the reader knows that his sleep was not the natural repose which brings freshness and elasticity.  His wife and Mildred, however, did not know this, and his languor, continued drowsiness, and depression, which even much effort could not disguise, confirmed their dread of an impending illness.  He saw their anxiety, and took advantage of their fears to hide his weakness.

“Yes,” he sighed, in response to their gentle solicitude as he pushed away his almost untasted breakfast, “I suppose my health has been impaired by worry of mind and the heat in town.  I’m better, though, than I have been.  I don’t see how you are going to endure the city.”

They both assured him, however, that they would not even consider any other arrangement except that already agreed upon, and urged that he should return to town that very day, his wife adding that just as soon as he had secured rooms within their means she would join him and prepare them for the family.

“Oh, Nan,” he again said dejectedly, “it’s a cruel fate which compels me to take you to a tenement-house in August.”

“It would be far more cruel to leave me here,” his wife answered earnestly.  “I could be happy anywhere if you were your old natural self once more.  Millie and I can both see that struggling alone and brooding by yourself over your troubles is not good for you,” and her gentle but determined purpose carried the day.

Mr. Jocelyn was then directed to a somewhat distant field, where he found Roger, who readily agreed to take him to the steamboat landing in the afternoon.  Lifting his eyes from his work a few moments afterward, the young man saw that his visitor, instead of returning to the house, had sat down under a clump of trees and had buried his face in his hands.

“There’s a screw loose about that man,” he muttered.  “He’s too uneven.  Yesterday at dinner he was the most perfect gentleman ever I saw; in the afternoon he had a fit of pompous hilarity and condescension; then came abstraction, as if his mind had stepped out for a time; and now, after twelve hours of sleep, instead of feeling like a lark, he looks as though he might attend his own funeral before night, and walks as if his feet were lead.  He mopes there under the trees when he has but a few more hours with his family.  If I had such a wife and such a daughter as he has, I’d cut a swath for them, no matter what stood in the way.”