The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 74, December, 1863

But Andy held on desperately to his coat.

"Come home. She's there. Maybe I ought not to say it. It's Jane. For God's sake, come to Jane!"

It was so dark that Andy could not see the expression of the man's face when he heard this. Starke did not speak for some minutes; when he did, his voice was firm and conscious, as it had not been before to-night.

"Let go my coat, Andrew; I feel choking. You know my wife, then?"

"Yes, this many a year. She's waited for you. Come home. Come!"

But Starke drew his arm away.

"Tell her I would have gone, if I had succeeded. But not now. I'm tired, I'm going to rest."

With both hands he pushed the lank, wet hair off his face. Somehow, all his tired life showed itself in the gesture.

"I don't think I ever did care as much for her as I do to-night. Is she always well, Andrew?"

"Yes, well. Come!"

"No; good night. Bid her good night."

As he turned away, he stopped and looked back.

"Ask her if she ever thinks of our Rob. I do." And so was gone.

As he went down the street, turning into an alley, something black jumped over the low gate beside Andy and followed him.

"It's the dog! Well, dumb creatures are curious, beyond me. Now for Jane"; and with his head muddled and aching, he went to find an express-stand.

The examination of the model took place on Tuesday. On the Saturday following, Dr. Bowdler was summoned to his back parlor to see a man and woman who had called. Going in, he found Andy, clad as before in his dress-suit of blue coat and marvellously plaid trousers, balancing himself uneasily on the edge of his chair, and a woman in Quaker dress beside him. Her face and presence attracted the Doctor at once, strongly, though they were evidently those of an uneducated working-woman. The quietude in her motions and expression, the repressed power, the delicacy, had worked out, from within, to carve her sad face into those fine lines he saw. No outside culture could do that. She spoke, too, with that simple directness that belongs to people who are sure of what they have to do in the world.

"I came to see if thee knew anything of my husband: thee was so kind to him some days ago. I am Jane Starke."

The Doctor comprehended in a moment. He watched the deserted wife curiously, as he answered her.

"No, my dear Madam. Is it possible he is not with you? I went to his lodging twice with my niece, and, finding it vacant, concluded that he had returned to you, or gone with our young friend Andrew here."

"He is not with me."

She rose, her fingers twitching nervously at her bonnet-strings.

"She was so dead sure you would know," said Andy, rising also. "We've been on the search for four days. We thought you would know. Where will you go now, Jane?"

The woman lost every trace of color when Dr. Bowdler answered her, but she showed no other sign of her disappointment.

"We will find him somewhere, Andrew."

"Stop, stop," interrupted the Doctor. "Tell me what you have done. You must not go in this way."

The woman began to answer, but Andy took the word from her.

"You keep yerself quiet, Jane. She's dreadful worn out, Sir. There's not much to tell. Jane had come into town that night to meet him,—gone to his lodgins—she was so sure he'd come home. She's been waitin' these ten years,"—in a whisper. "But he didn't come. Nor the next day, nor any day since. An' the last I saw of him was goin' down the street in the rain, with the dog followin'. We've been lookin' every way we could, but I don't know the town much, out of my streets for milk, an' Jane knows nothin' of it at all, so"—

"It is as I told you!" broke in Miss Defourchet, who had entered, unperceived, with a blaze of enthusiasm that made Jane start, bewildered. "He is at work,—some new effort. Madam, you have reason to thank God for making you the wife of such a man. It makes my blood glow," turning to her uncle, "to find this dauntless heroism in the rank and file of the people."

She was sincere in her own heroic sympathy for the rank and file: her slender form dilated, her eyes flashed, and there was a rich color mounting to her fine aquiline features.

"I like a man to fight fate to the death as this one,—never to give up,—to sacrifice life to his idea."

"If thee means the engine by the idea," said Jane, dully, "we've given up a good deal to it. He has. It don't matter for me."

Miss Defourchet glanced indignantly at the lumbering figure, the big slow eyes, following her with a puzzled pain in them. For all mischances or sinister fates in the world she had compassion, except for one,—stupidity.

"I knew," to Dr. Bowdler, "he would not be content with the decision the other day. It is his destiny to help the world. And if this woman will come between him and his work, I hope she may never find him."

Jane put a coarse hand up to her breast as if something hurt her; after a moment, she said, with her heavy, sad face looking full down on the young girl,—

"Thee is young yet. It may be God meant my old man to do this work: it may be not. He knows. Myself, I do not think He keeps the world waitin' for this air-engine. Others'll be found to do it when it's needed; what matter if he fails? An' when a man gives up all little works for himself, an' his child, or—his wife," with a gasp, "for some great work"—

She stopped.

"It's more likely that the Devil is driving him than God leading," said the Doctor, hastily.

"Come, Andrew," said Jane, gravely. "We have no time to lose."

She moved to the door,—unsteadily, however.

"She's fagged out," said Andy, lingering behind her. "Since Tuesday night I've followed her through streets an' alleys, night an' day. Jest as prim an' sober as you see. Cryin' softly to herself at times. It's a sore heart-break, Sir. Waitin' these ten years"—

Dr. Bowdler offered his help, earnestly, as did his niece, with a certain reserve. The dog Thor had disappeared with Starke, and they hoped that would afford some clue.

"But the woman is a mere clog," said Miss Defourchet, impatiently, after they were gone. "Her eyes are as sad, unreasonable as Thor's. Nothing in them but instinct. But it is so with most women,"—with a sigh.

"But somehow, Mary, those women never mistake their errand in the world any more than Thor, and do it as unconsciously and completely as he," said the Doctor, with a quizzical smile. "If Starke had followed, his 'instincts,' he would have been a snug farmer to-day in the Jerseys."

Miss Defourchet vouchsafed no answer.

Dr. Bowdler gave his help, as he had promised, but to no purpose. A week passed in the search without success, until at last Thor brought it. The dog was discovered one night in the kitchen, waiting for his supper, as he had been used to do: his affection for his new master, I suppose, not having overcome his recollection of the flesh-pots of Egypt. They followed him (Jane, the Doctor, and Andy) out to that maze of narrow streets, near Fairmount, called, I think, Francisville. He stopped at a low house, used in front as a cake-shop, the usual young girl with high cheek-bones and oily curls waiting within.

"The dog's owner?" the trading look going out of her eyes suddenly, "Oh, are you his friends? He's low to-night: mother's up with him since supper; mother's kept him since last Tuesday,"—fussing out from behind the counter. "Take chairs, Ma'am. I'll call her. Go out, you Stevy,"—driving out two or three urchins in their bed-gowns who were jamming up the door-way.

Miserably poor the whole place was; the woman, when she came down, a hard skinflint—in Andy's phrase—in the face: just home from her day's washing, her gown pinned up, her arms flabby and red.

"Good evenin', Sir! evenin', Ma'am! See the man? Of course, Ma'am; but you'd best be keerful,"—standing between Jane and the door. "He's very poorly."

"What ails him?"

"Well, I'll say it out,—if you're his friends, as you say," stammering. "I'd not like to accuse any one rashly, but—I think he'd a notion of starvin' to death, an' got himself so low. Come to me las' week, an' pawned his coat for my back room to sleep in. He eat nothin' then: I seen that. An' he used to go out an' look at the dam for hours: but he never throwed himself in. Since he took to bed, we keep him up with broth and sech as we have,—Sally an' me. Sir? Afford it? Hum! We're not as well off as we have been," dryly; "but I'm not a beast to see a man starvin' under my roof. Oh, certingly, Ma'am; go up."