“And you thought you could row!” he groaned. “You poor fool!”
And then he was sick, violently sick, with convulsions that shook his whole frame, sending great throbs of pain crashing through his brain. He dropped his clothes in a pile on the floor and crept into bed, where he lay with cheek buried in the pillow, listening horrified to his own heart beating “tub-up! tub-up! tub-up!” in his ear. There was no longer any doubt of his condition. “It’s my heart!” he muttered wildly to himself. “My heart has gone back on me. They knew more about it than I did. I’m not fit to row!”
The head throbs subsided after a time, and Roger began to think. He recalled certain occasions in his childhood when he had suffered from sick headaches. His mother used to sit beside him then, holding his hand, and, with her quiet, soothing presence, helping him to bear the pain. He missed her now, terribly. He felt, too, that he had forfeited his right to her ministrations; he had been disloyal to her, in intent at least, when she had been steadfastly loyal to him. The very command against which he had rebelled was proof of her sympathy, for it was the result of her effort to save his rowing when his father would have forbidden it out of hand. “She did her best for me,” he thought in keen self-reproach, “and she trusted me, and I was going back on her. It’s all up with the rowing now; I shall never sit in a boat again, but I’ll have the examination if I ever get out of this, just to prove that I’m what she thinks I am.”
This resolution brought him a certain composure. He ceased to mourn, and presently fell asleep. The sun was already slanting down through his open window when he awoke. Mr. Adams stood at the bedside.
“How do you feel this morning?” asked the master. “If sleep can cure you, you ought to be well. You’ve slept over breakfast in spite of all the noise.”
“I’m better,” answered Roger, who had profited by the interval to get his bearings. “My head doesn’t ache any more, but I feel rather weak and hollow.”
“We’ll send you up something to eat. What shall it be?”
“I think I’d better see a doctor before I eat anything,” replied the boy, humbly. His attitude had changed over night.
Mr. Adams nodded approval to this sentiment. “That’s right. You ought to have seen one yesterday. I’ll telephone for Dr. Brayton. In the meantime I’ll have them send up a little toast. You can nibble on that if you feel faint.”
The toast came, and Roger nibbled on it as long as it lasted. He felt better, far better. The heart spell was evidently passing. Dunn came in and sat on the bed for half an hour, telling a long tale of his tragedy of hard work and not forgetting at its close to exhort the patient to keep up his courage and get well before Wednesday. The exhortation drew a strained smile to Roger’s face, such a smile as we assume to shield from intruding eyes the knowledge of a hurt—and the hurt smarted long after the complacent Jason had left the room.