"I'm perfectly all right!" she insisted. "It's only the reaction after so much anxiety. Anybody would feel it, in my place."
"Yes, of course," I soothed her. But I knew that there must be more than that. She looked as if she never slept. My heart yearned over her, yet I despaired of doing any good. She would not confide in me. All my confidence in myself as a "Brightener" was gone.
CHAPTER X
THE CLIMAX
From that time on I was haunted by Rosemary's thin, beautiful face, the suppressed anguish in her eyes, and the wretched conviction that I was of no use—that I'd stumbled against a high, blank wall. Often at night I dreamed of her in a feverish way, queer dreams that I couldn't remember when I waked, though they left me depressed and anxious. And then, one night nearly four weeks after Murray had been pronounced a saved man, came the climax.
As usual, I was thinking of the Murrays when I went to bed—how well and handsome and happy he was, how mysteriously and silently the girl was fading. I must have dropped off to sleep with these thoughts in my mind, and how long I slept I don't know, but I waked, sitting up, hearing loud sobs. At first I imagined they were Rosemary's. Then I realized that they were my own.
In a moment Jim was with me, holding me tight, as if I were a child. "Darling one, what is it? Tell Jim!" he implored.
"I don't know," I wailed. "Except the letter—or was it a telegram? And then that dark precipice! She was on the edge. She called to me: 'Elizabeth—help! help!' But the whole ocean came rolling between us. Oh, Jim, I must get to her!"
"I suppose it's Rosemary you're talking about," Jim said. "But it was only a dream, dearest child. You're not awake yet. Nothing has happened to Rosemary."