"Badly?"
"A smart touch. And Jackson doesn't mend as he ought to do. I can't understand why either of them should have it at all. The island may be barren, but it ought to be healthy."
"I wish I could do anything beside lying here like a log."
"Well, you can't," said Percival, by no means unkindly. "I never heard that it was any good to stand on a broken leg. I'll manage."
Such interchange of semi-confidential sentences was now rare between them. Percival was, for the most part, very silent when circumstances threw him into personal contact with Brian; and there was something repellant about this silence—something which prevented Brian from trying to break it. Brian was feeling bitterly that he had done Percival some wrong: he knew that he might justly be blamed for returning to Scotland after his supposed death. He need not have practised any deception at all, but, having practised it, he ought to have maintained it. He had no right to let the estates pass to Elizabeth unless he meant her to keep them. Such, he imagined, might well be Percival's attitude of mind towards him.
And then there was the question of his love for Elizabeth, of which both Elizabeth herself and Dino Vasari had made Heron aware. But in this there was nothing to be ashamed of. When he fell in love with Elizabeth, he thought her comparatively poor and friendless, and he did not know of her engagement to Percival. He never whispered to himself that he had won her heart: that fact, which Elizabeth fancied that she had made shamefully manifest, had not been grasped by Brian's consciousness at all. He would have thought himself a coxcomb to imagine that she cared for him more than as a friend. If he had ever dreamt of such a thing, he assured himself that he had made a foolish mistake.
He thought that he understood what Percival wanted to say to him. Of course, since Dino had disclosed the truth, Elizabeth Murray desired to give up the property, and her lover had volunteered to come in search of the missing man. It was a generous act, and one that Brian thoroughly admired: it was worthy, he thought, of Elizabeth's lover. For he knew that he had always been especially obnoxious to Percival Heron in his capacity as tutor; and now, if he were to assume the character of a claimant to Elizabeth's estates, he would certainly not find the road to Percival's liking. For his own part, Brian respected and liked Percival Heron much more than he had found it possible to do during those flying visits to Italy, when he had systematically made himself disagreeable to the unknown Mr. Stretton. He admired the way in which Percival assumed the leadership of the party, and bore the burden of all their difficulties on his own broad shoulders: he admired his cheerfulness and untiring energy. He was sure that if Heron could succeed in carrying him off to England, and forcing him to make Elizabeth a poor woman instead of a rich one, he would be only too pleased to do so. But this was a thing which Brian did not mean to allow.
Jackson's illness was a protracted one, and left him in a weak state, from which he had not recovered when Pollard died. Then the boy Barry fell ill—out of sheer fright, Percival declared; but his attack was a very slight one, prolonged from want of energy rather than real indisposition. Heron was the only nurse, for Fenwick's strength had to be utilised in procuring food for the party; and, as he was often up all night and busy all day long, it was no surprise to Brian when at last he staggered, rather than walked into the hut, and threw himself down on the ground, declaring himself so tired that he could not keep awake. And he had scarcely said the words when slumber overpowered him.
Brian, who was beginning to move about a very little, crawled to the door and managed to attract Fenwick's attention. The man—a rough, black-bearded sailor—came up to him with a less surly look than usual.
"How's Barry?" said Brian.