"The doctor didn't say. She didn't suppose he could tell yet. It was a bad case, any how, and they'd got a long bout of nursing before them."
[CHAPTER V.]
RESULTS.
MRS. KINGSCOTE'S STORY—(continued).
IT was only under the first shock of the accident that Bertram was so entirely overcome as to show fully what he felt. I hardly knew what to do with the boy; he was so overpowered with remorse, for having unwittingly guided the poor Murchisons into danger. Yet nobody could justly blame him. The little talk with Mrs. Murchison, from which I had hoped so much, seemed rather to add to his distress. Her look of patient sorrow impressed him, I suppose, as it had impressed me.
When I reached home, after leaving her with her husband at Mrs. Coles', Ellie told me that she had seen nothing of Bertram meanwhile. He had gone straight to his room, she said, and had not since come out. "And I thought he mightn't like me to go to him," she added.
No; he would not like that, if he were overcome, I knew well. In a general way he could not endure that even I, his mother, should see him shed a tear. He had always such a spirit of his own. So I told Ellie she was right; and I went upstairs, not without hesitation.
But the door was not locked; and when I tapped, he at once said, "Come in." I found him on the bed, pale and restless, tossing to and fro, the picture of misery.
"I'm only seedy. It's nothing, mother," he said, with a husky attempt at a laugh. "Just a little—like what I was in the train."
"Poor Bertie!" I said.