He seemed never to be out of his gig unless at the bedside of some patient.

So long and wearing had the routes become--often beyond Barnegat and as far as Westfield--that the sorrel gave out, and he was obliged to add another horse to his stable.

His patients saw the weary look in his eyes--as of one who had often looked on sorrow--and thought it was the hard work and anxiety over them that had caused it.

But the old nurse knew better.
"His heart's breakin' for love of her," she would say to Meg, looking down into his sleepy eyes--she cuddled him more than ever these days--"and I don't wonder.

God knows how it'll all end." Jane wrote to him but seldom; only half a dozen letters in all during the first year of her absence among them one to tell him of their safe arrival, another to thank him for his kindness to Martha, and a third to acknowledge the receipt of a letter of introduction to a student friend of his who was now a prominent physician in Paris, and who might be useful in case either of them fell ill.