"Fond of his family, ain't he?" said Hale, approvingly.
"I believe I've heard as much intimated," answered Pusey.
Garwood returned with his overcoat and hat and gloves, and they went out. He spent the day with them, tramping about through the rain, and at night took them to the theater, one of the sacrifices a congressman must make when his constituents come to Washington.
When he returned to the hotel at midnight, and went up to his rooms, he found his wife sitting before a fire she had had laid in the grate. She was dressed and her little traveling-bag stood on the marble-top center table, with her hat and veil and rolled-up gloves beside it.
"Why!" he said, in surprise, "what's the matter?"
She turned and lifted to him a face that was stained with tears. Then she rose, holding out her arms towards him.
"Oh, Jerome!" she said. "I'm--going home!"
"Why--Em--dearie! What's the matter! Tell me, what's the matter?" He had gone close to her and taken her in his arms, and he made his question the demand of a man who does not like to deal with tears:
"Look!" She drew a telegram from the bosom of her dress, and held it toward him. When he took it, she hid her face on his breast and shook with great sobs.
He took the telegram with his free hand, flirted it open and read:
"Your father ill. You had better come home at once. Dr. G. S. Larkin."
"Doctor G. S. Larkin!" Garwood said, repeating the signature, "that's like him, to sign it Doctor."
"Oh, but Jerome," his wife cried, "that's of no importance--how he signs it--now." And she wept afresh, as if he had added an affront to her misery.
"Well, there, dear, don't cry. It's all right. Must you go, think?" He released her and she sank into the chair again.
"Oh, yes," she moaned, drooping toward the fire, "I must go at once. Oh, you were so long in coming! I needed you so, and wanted you so! I ought to have gone on that train to-night." She shook her head slowly from side to side. "Poor, lonely old man!"
The words half enraged Garwood, but he kept silent. He did not know what else to do--only to wait.
"He's sleeping," she said, "in there." She waved her hand wearily toward the door. "He's all ready--we're _all_ all ready. When can we go?"
"Well, you can't leave now until to-morrow," he said, trying to be tender with her. "Hadn't you better get to bed and get some rest?"