But as
the days went on and the event continued the same he allowed himself
greater range. Formerly the three went their walks or drives together,
but now he sometimes went alone. In these absences he found relief from
the stress of his constant vigilance; he was able to cast off the bond
which enslaves the physician to his patient, and which he must ignore at
times for mere self-preservation's sake; but there was always a lurking
anxiety, which, though he refused to let it define itself to him,
shortened the time and space he tried to put between them.
One afternoon in April, when he left her sleeping, he was aware of
somewhat recklessly placing himself out of reach in a lonely excursion
to a village demolished by the earthquake of 1887, and abandoned
himself, in the impressions and incidents of his visit to the ruin, to a
luxury of impersonal melancholy which the physician cannot often allow
himself. At last, his care found him, and drove him home full of a
sharper fear than he had yet felt since the first days. But Mr. Gerald
was tranquilly smoking under a palm in the hotel garden, and met him
with an easy smile.
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