The Rector and the Doctor's Family by Margaret Oliphant

Such a parting, however, is sadly apt to lead to future meetings. Notwithstanding his smouldering quarrel with Fred, which was always ready to burst out afresh, Dr. Rider would not give up coming to St. Roque's. He came to some clandestine arrangement with Mrs. Smith, of which nobody ever was aware, and which he himself was rather ashamed of than otherwise; and he attended Freddy with the most dutiful exactness till the child was quite restored. But all this time Nettie put on a coat of armour, and looked so thoroughly unlike herself in her unusual reserve and propriety, that the doctor was heartily discouraged, and could go no further. Besides, it would not be positively correct to assert that -- though he would gladly have carried her off in the drag anywhere, to the end of the world, in the enchantment of the moment -- he was just as ready to propose setting up a new household, with Fred and his family hanging on to it as natural dependants. That was a step the doctor was not prepared for. Some people are compelled to take the prose concerns of life into full consideration even when they are in love, and Edward Rider was one of these unfortunate individuals. The boldness which puts everything to the touch to gain or lose was not in this young man. He had been put to hard encounters enough in his day, and had learned to trust little to chance or good fortune. He did not possess the boldness which disarms an adverse fate, nor that confidence in his own powers which smooths down wounded pride, and accounts even for failure. He was, perhaps it is only right to say, not very capable of heroism: but he was capable of seeing the lack of the heroic in his own composition, and of feeling bitterly his own self-reproaches, and the remarks of the world, which is always so ready to taunt the very cowardice it creates. After that moment in which he could have dared anything for her and with her, it is sad to be obliged to admit that perhaps Dr. Edward too, like Nettie, withdrew a little from that climax of feeling. Not that his heart grew colder or his sentiments changed; but only that, in sight of the inevitable result, the poor young fellow paused and pondered, obeying the necessity of his nature. People who jump at conclusions, if they have to bear the consequences of folly often enough, are at least spared those preliminary heartaches. Dr. Rider, eager as love and youth could make him, was yet incapable of shutting his eyes to the precipice at his feet. That he despised himself for doing so, did not make the matter easier. These were the limits of his nature, and beyond them he could not pass.

Accordingly matters went on in this dangerous fashion for many weeks longer. The fire smouldered, strengthening its pent-up flames. Day by day malicious sprites of thought went out behind Dr. Rider in his drag, leading him into the wildest calculations, the most painful complication of schemes. If Fred and his family could only be persuaded to return to Australia, his brother thought -- if any bribe within Edward's means could tempt the ruined man to such a step; and when he was there, why there was Providence to take care of the helpless unlovely household, and necessity might compel the wretched father to work for his children. Such were the vain projects that revolved and fermented through the doctor's agitated brain as he went among his patients. Luckily he had a very favourable and well-disposed lot of sick people at that crisis -- they all got well in spite of the doctor, and gave their own special cases and his anxiety all the credit for his grave looks; and all these half-finished streets and rough new roads in the east end of Carlingford were sown thick with the bootless suggestions of Dr. Rider's love and fears. The crop did not show upon the vulgar soil, but gave lurking associations to every half-built street corner which he passed in his rounds many a day after, and served at this present momentous era to confuse doubly the chaos of his thoughts.