The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1897-05-14
XIII.
~ LII.
LOSS AND GAIN.

1t was early in July when Philip
began the campaign of restoration. He
made up his mind in the beginning
that it was to be race with death,
and, believing this, he did not spare
himself, though the heat during the
weeks that followed was terrific. 1t
was dry summer, and in a drought
the climate of the Chiwassec valley is,
to say the least, something less than
invigorating. For the first fortnight
Philip went about with the feeling that
the next day would finish him. Then,
as the barriers hedging him on the
side toward accomplishment grew into
respectable mountains of difficulty,
winged spirit of energy. which was,
perhaps, only an unused heritage from
his Woodworking father, began to pos
sess him, breaking the bonds of habit
and lifting him out of the rut of in
trospection. One morning he forgo:
to count his pulse, and the Gaily analy
sis of his symptoms was omitted for
the first time in weeks; ard that night
he slept with open windows, through
which the cool Ereeze from the noun
tain blew across the bed, ard no harm
came of it. He was too busy to think
much about his intirmity at the time,
but week later he stepped upon the
patent weighing g-machine in the ro-
tunAla of the Johannisberg, and when
the pointer failed to record the usual
decrease he went to his room ami
dropped the half-used bottle Of hypo
,,r, 10
the turning of the tide, and by the
time his fellow-mi grants IN the exotic
city were beginning to wilt under the
fervid summer sun, Philip was growing
stronger in body and sapsr in mind;
finding a certain tonic in a series of de-
feats which were sharp enough to st;m-
ulate without being heavy enough to
crush.
And while he wrestled with the diff
ticulties Of the legal problem, the fire
burned within him. consuming some
"uhh;sh and shedding new Fight into
the dusky corners OF the soul chamber
hitherto obscured by the shadows of iIl
health and morbidness. The Light was
not altogether welcome, though it ma
terially lessened the distance between
the ostensible Philip and Philip the
real. For one thing, it belittled the mo-
tive which was responsible for his
work. Allowing the promptings of
common humanity their full weight,
the fact remained that his enthusiasm
had for it's startingpoint a desire to
vain the approval of Elsie Duncan.
That was the new ideal, and his saner
thought told him that ii was wretched-
ly inadequate; that it sprang from i'm
pulse and was degraded in the hour
of it's birth by unfaith. Unworthy as
1t was, it was still an ideal, and Philip
lashed himself into a small fury of
self-contempt when he discovered that
it was no longer the motive for his
eNertions; that Elsie's appreciation and
Kilgrow's wrongs were secondary con-
sderations in comparison with the
strenuous urgings of newly aroused
ambition squirting him on to wiring vic
tory out of defeat for victory's sake.
He kept his room at Duncan's and
rode often up the valley, both for the
sake of the intimacy which the nature
of his quest made impossible elsewhere,
and because he honestly wanted to be
true to the new ideal; and he went
oftener and stayed longer when he be-
gan to feel the ground slipping from
under him in the small matter of senti-
ment. He said rather bitterly that he
must be true to something; that he
should lose what little self-respect his
tickle prccipituncy had left him if he
suffered himself to swerve from the
plain path he had chosen in the day of
illness.
For some of the doubts and much
of the dissatisfaction, Elsie was her
self answerable. She was frank with
out being confidential; she was affec-
tionate and sympathetic, but she never
gave him an opportunity to add word
to those already spoken. She rejoiced
frankly in his stubborn perseverance
in the Kilgrow affair, and she was
openly thankful when the tide of i'll
health began to ebb; but beyond all
this, Philip felt that there was bar
rier which he had never been permit
ted to pass. He told himself that it
was maidenly modesty-a nice refine
ment of womanly delicacy which de-
Tended her from the ambiguity of his
impulsive declaration; and in this be-
lief he went about, seeking the op-
portunity for palmer speech which