Suddenly I remembered his wife, certainly very sick in the house, and the talk that she was "struck with death"-- and he out shooting geese, and now gallivanting around with a strange girl in the dark.
There must be some mistake--this man with the bold eyes and the warm and friendly handclasp, with the fascinating manners and the neighborly ideas, could not possibly be a person who would do such things.

But even as I thought this, and made up my mind that, after all, I would join him and the queer-behaving doctor in a friendly drink, a woman came flying out of the house and across the road, calling out, asking if any one knew where Mr.Gowdy was, that his wife was dying.
He and the girl came to the fire quickly, and as they came into view I saw a movement of his arm as if he was taking it from around her waist.
"I'm here," said he--and his voice sounded harder, somehow.

"What's the matter ?" "Your wife," said the woman, "-- she's taken very bad, Mr.Gowdy." He started toward the house without a word; but before he went out of sight he turned and looked for a moment with a sort of half-smile at the girl.

For a while we were all as still as death.

Finally Doctor Bliven remarked that lots of folks were foolish about sick people, and that more patients were scared to death by those about them than died of disease.