"An' now, sir," said Caleb, as he led his master to bed, "warnin' et es. This day month, I goes, unless—"
"Unless what, Caleb?"
"Well, sir, I reckons there be on'y wan way out o't, as the cat said by the sausage-machine, an' that es—to marry Tamsin Dearlove."
"My dear Caleb," groaned Mr. Fogo, "I only wish I could! But I will try again to-morrow."
CHAPTER XXIII.
HOW ONE LOVER TOOK LEAVE OF HIS WITS,
AND TWO CAME TO THEIR SENSES.
But Mr. Fogo was not to try again on the morrow.
For Caleb, stealing up in the grey dawn to assure himself that his master was comfortably asleep, found him tossing in a high fever, and rowed down to Troy for dear life and the Doctor. Returning, he found that the fever had become delirium. Mr. Fogo, indeed, was sitting up in bed, and rattling off proposals of marriage at the rate of some six a minute, without break or pause. He was very red and earnest, rolled his eyes most strangely, and wandered in his address from Tamsin to Geraldine, and back again with a vehemence that gravelled all logic.
"Lord ha' mussy!" cried Caleb at last. "Do 'ee hush, that's a dear. 'Tes sinful—all these gallons o' true affecshun a-runnin' to waste. You'm too lovin' by half, as Sam said when hes wife got hugged by a bear. What do 'ee think, sir?"