It was very early, only a little after six, and the sun had risen on a day exquisite, warm, and windless. In Martin’s room the big window had been open all night, and all night the blind had not once rattled or stirred, while the lamp on the table near it burned steady without a flicker. But though it had been light for nearly an hour, the nurse had only this moment put out the lamp, for she had been alert, quick, and watchful, unable to leave his bedside for a moment for the last four hours.

He had been very restless, attempting again and again to sit up in bed, and it had needed not only all her care but all her strength to keep him lying down. All night long, too, that terrible uncontrollable twitching of the muscles of leg and arm had gone on incessantly, and again and again, for ten minutes or more at a stretch, she had kept one arm with steady pressure over those poor, jumping knees, while she held the other ready to prevent his getting up. It had been all she could do, in fact, to manage him alone, but she had been unwilling, except at the last extremity, to rouse Nurse James from the next room, for she had had a terribly tiring day yesterday with him. Yesterday, too, a second doctor had come down from London. The case was extremely grave, but all that could be done was being done.

Martin was lying rather more quiet just now, and Nurse Baker had moved from the bed to put out the{338} lamp and draw the blind up a little. His eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling, and he was talking in a high, meaningless drone.

“No, Karl, I can’t do it” he was saying. “I don’t see it like that. I know I shall break down, because I haven’t the slightest idea of how it begins, and I can’t leave out the beginning. And father is angry with me, and when he is angry he frightens me. Hasn’t Stella come to see me? I had such a headache, you know; like a great piece of hot iron, you know, right inside my head. They took off the top of my head to put it there. I’m frightened of him when he’s like that. Where’s Stella? No; Lady Sunningdale was in the bird of para—para—parachute—I don’t know, in that hat anyhow, you fool with Sahara. That’s what made it so hot, and I can’t endure English chants. Oh, father, don’t, don’t. It isn’t my fault.”

His voice rose to a scream, and the nurse came quickly back to the bedside, just in time to prevent him rising.

The door opened gently, and Helen came in in her dressing-gown. And the terrible drone began again.

“And when we’re married, Helen and Frank shall come and stay with us, and I’ll play to them, if it gets cooler. But father mustn’t know; he mustn’t come. Karl is the loud pedal you see, and the music-stool, and I’m only the black notes. I hope they won’t play me much, as I’m all out of tune with the iron. And all those faces are there, a sea of them, and I’m all alone. If I break down father will be angry!”

He turned his head sideways on the pillow, closed his eyes, and was silent for a little. Helen, with quivering lip, was looking at that dear face, so thin{339} and hollow, so untidy and unshaven, with unspeakable love and longing. Then the nurse left the bed and came to her. Helen did not ask if he was better.

“Can I help you in anything?” she said.

“No, dear Miss Helen, thank you. I think he will be quieter for a little now. But I should like Dr. Thaxter to be sent for at once, please. Yes, he is very ill. He is as ill as he can be. There, there, my dear!”

Helen clasped her hands together a moment, holding them out towards Martin with a dumb, beseeching gesture, as if imploring him.

“And I am so strong,” she said. “Why can’t I give him some of my strength! It is cruel.”

“Ah, if one only could do that,” said Nurse Baker. “But he is not suffering; he is quite unconscious.”

“May my father come in to see him a moment?” asked the girl.

“No; much better not. He does not know what he is saying, but he keeps on saying what you have heard. Now, will you send somebody for the doctor? There are certain things I don’t like about his looks. And then come back, dear, if you like. He never says a word his sister should not hear.”

Helen advanced to the side of the bed a moment, and just touched Martin’s hand, which lay outside the bedclothes. She could not speak, but just nodded to the nurse and went away.

She sent word to the stables that the cart was to go at once to fetch Dr. Thaxter, and then went to her father’s study, where he was waiting for her.

He was kneeling by his table, as he had knelt for{340} the last half-hour, but rose when she entered, and they stood together, hands clasped, a moment.

“No, dear father, he is no better,” she said. “He—he is very ill, indeed. And Nurse Baker thinks you had better not go in.”

Mr. Challoner looked at her with that dreadful dry-eyed despair that she had seen on his face so often during this last week.

“Does he still talk about me?” he asked.

Helen laid her hands on his shoulders.

“Yes, father,” she said; “but he does not know what he is saying. Indeed, he does not. He talks all sorts of nonsense. He has no idea what he says.”

“Ah, Helen, that is just it,” he moaned. “The poor lad speaks instinctively; he says what has become a habit of thought. Oh, my God, my God!”

Helen knew her impotence to help him.

“I have sent for Dr. Thaxter,” she said. “Nurse Baker wanted him to come at once. And, father, there is another thing, which I have only just thought of. If Dr. Thaxter thinks—if he thinks that, we ought to send for a Roman priest.”

Mr. Challoner’s face changed suddenly.

“No,” he said, in a harsh whisper; “no Roman priest shall enter the house.”

“Ah, but he must, he must,” said Helen. “Think a moment. If Martin was conscious, you know he would wish it, and you would send for one.”

Mr. Challoner did not reply for a moment; then he lifted his hands with a helpless gesture.

“And it is Easter morning,” he said.

Somehow that cut at the girl’s heart more than anything.{341}

“Yes, dear father,” she said at length; “and is not that—whatever happens—enough for us all? Whoever we are, Frank, Martin, you, I, that is where we meet.”

Then for the first time since that day, now nearly a fortnight ago, when Martin had sat down dead tired on the seat by the front door, the blessed relief of tears came to his father, and he wept long, silently, a man’s hard, painful tears. And with those tears the upright hardness of him, the God-fearing, God-loving narrowness went from him. The bitter frosts of his nature melted, they were dissolved.

“Oh, Helen, if he lives,” he said at length.

“Ah, yes, dear father, or if he dies. Even if he dies, dear.”

She took his hands, holding them tightly.

“Oh, help me to remember that,&............