Tarrant had got scarlet-fever, and very badly too.

He was removed to the fever hospital on Friday, and by Sunday morning it looked as though things would go hardly with Tarrant. There were complications, and the boy seemed to have no power, either mental or physical, to resist the disease.

So ill was he that the Principal went to see him after morning chapel. Tarrant was quite conscious, and made whispered, suitable answers to Dr. Wentworth's kind and serious remarks.

"Keep your heart up," said the Principal just before he left; "remember that we are all thinking about you and praying that you may get well."

"Did they pray for me in chapel?" Tarrant asked.

On being assured that this was so, the boy turned his face to the wall, feeling that all was over for him. Like a good many older folk who ought to know better, Tarrant thought that to be prayed for in public proved that the case was indeed desperate.

He had been prayed for in chapel!

Only people who were very ill, who were going to die, were ever prayed for in chapel. Chaps had told him so.

There was a chap died in the Easter term, and he'd been prayed for in chapel for a fortnight.

Tarrant was too weak to be much upset. It was a footling thing to do, to die in one's first term, but it couldn't be helped. Rotten luck though! Old Bruiser would be awfully cut up. Fellows had told him how cut up old Nick was when that chap died in his house, and Bruiser was a jolly sight decenter than old Nick.

What ought a chap to think about when he was dying? Religion and that, he supposed. He tried to remember a hymn, but the only hymns that really appealed to Tarrant were those with "ff." against several of the verses, when the Coll. all sang at the tops of their voices and nearly lifted the roof off the chapel. And somehow he didn't feel very jubilant just then.

Again he tried to think of something soothing and suitable, but the only thing he could remember was a bit of a French exercise--"The nature of Frederick William was harsh and bad." And this he found himself saying over and over again.

The kind nurse bent down to hear what he was muttering, but all she could catch was "harsh and bad," and she wondered if he had been bullied in B. House.

From the nature of Frederick William, Tarrant's wandering thoughts turned to Germs.

What a stew old Germs would be in!

She was kind though; he remembered that with dreamy gratitude. She hated chaps to be ill, and did her level best to make them comfortable. All the house said that. But my aunt! she was afraid of infection, and fever was awfully infectious. Now Dr. Wentworth wasn't afraid, and he had kids. Bruiser wasn't afraid either; but you wouldn't expect Bruiser to be afraid of things. He had a comfortable big hand, had Bruiser. Tarrant wasn't capable of wishing for much, but he rather wished Bruiser could have stayed. He felt less like floating away into space when Bruiser held him.

What was it Bruiser had said?

"You must buck up, you know. Think of your father and mother in India, how worried they'll be."

Poor mater, it would be a bad knock for her. The pater, too, he'd been at the good old Coll.--his name was up in the big Modern.

Tarrant supposed the chaps would subscribe for a wreath. They did for that other chap. Briggs minor told him. He wondered what sort of a wreath it would be; he hoped it would be nice and large.

What was that hymn they had in chapel last Sunday evening? Ah, he had thought of a hymn at last--

    "Sweet Saviour, bless us ere we go;
    Thy word into our minds instil,
    And make our luke-warm hearts to glow
    With lowly love and fervent will...."

He wished his heart would have glowed, but somehow it refused to do anything of the kind.

It had a nice cheerful tune, that hymn, especially the last two lines--

    "Through life's long day and death's dark night,
    O gentle Jesus, be our light."

Would it be very dark? he wondered. Perhaps for him, seeing his life had been so short, the gentle Jesus of the hymn might see to it that it was not so dark as to be frightening...

*      *      *      *      *

When Tony Bevan got back from the hospital that afternoon Miss Foster was waiting for him in the hall. She wore a long travelling-cloak and a most imposing hat, and she appeared very much upset. Tony's sad, worn face did nothing to reassure her.

"He is just slipping away," he said sadly, as he followed her into the drawing-room. "There seems no real reason why he should die, but he seems to have no stamina, and they give very little hope. Everything has been done. The nurses are most devoted, the doctors have tried everything. The next few hours will decide it."

"You will have to manage without me for a day or two," Miss Foster said abruptly; "I'm going to that boy. It's just providential that Miss Clonmell is out of the house. I've put on a cotton dress, which can be burnt before I leave the hospital, so can everything I wear in his room, but I'm going. My cab will be here directly. I could never forgive myself or rest easy another hour if I don't go and see after that boy myself. I have no faith in trained nurses, nor much in doctors for the matter of that. I believe they carry about all sort of horrid microbes in their clothes. They never change or disinfect or anything. I've no doubt Tarrant rubbed up against some doct............