"THERE SAT PHIL ON THE EDGE OF OUR BED."
"Oh, Phil, Phil!" I cried out; then I sat and stared at him, and wondered if I were really awake, or if this were some dreadful dream.
"His back was weak from the start," went on Phil, drearily, "and probably would have been to the end of his life; but at least he would have been able to get around—to go to college—to enter a profession. Now all that is over and done with. Isn't it awful!"
"Oh, but that can't be true," I broke in eagerly. "Why, Phil, Fee was in a dreadful way that last attack, I told the doctor about it,"—Phil nodded; "he couldn't stand on his feet at all,—and yet he got better. Oh, he may now; he may, Phil, only with a longer time! See?"
"I thought of that when Gordon told me what you had told him, and I begged for some hope of that sort,—begged as I wouldn't now for my own life, Jack." Phil's voice got so unsteady that he had to stop for a minute. "After a good deal of talking and pleading," he went on presently, "I got him to admit that there is a bare chance, on account of his being so young, that Fee may get around again, in a sort of a way; but it's too slim to be counted on, and it could only be after a long time,—two or three years or longer. Dr. Archard'll be in town to-morrow, and they will consult; but Gordon says he's had cases of this kind before, and knows the symptoms well. I think he would have given us hope if he could. You see Fee isn't strong; oh, if it had only been I!—great, uncouth, ugly brute that I am!" Phil struck his hand so fiercely on the bed that the springs just bounced me up and down.
"Fee's feet and legs are utterly useless," he began again; "his spine is so weak he can't sit up. Even his fingers are affected,—he can't close them on anything; he's lost his grip. And he may lie in this condition for years; he may never recover from it. Oh, think of that, Jack!" Phil broke out excitedly; "think of it! Our Fee, with his splendid, clever mind, with all his bright hopes and ambitions, with the certainty of going to college so near at hand,—to have to lie there, day in and day out, a helpless, useless creature! And brought to it by my doing,—his own brother! Oh!" He drew his knee up, and folding his arms round it, laid his face down with a moan.
I slipped over to his side and threw my arm across his shoulder. "Phil, dear," I said, to comfort him, "try and not think of that part; I'm sure Fee wouldn't want you to. You know he had that other attack—and—perhaps this would have come any way—"
But Phil interrupted, looking at me with those miserable, hollow eyes. "Not like this," he said. "Dr. Gordon told me himself that the blow Fee got was what did the mischief this time; with medical care he might have got over those other attacks. Gordon didn't dream that I was the infuriated drunken brute who flung him against that chair. Drunken! I think I must have been possessed by a devil! That I should have raised my hand against Fee,—the brother I love so dearly, my chum, my comrade, mother's boy, of whom she was so tender! Oh, God! shall I have to carry this awful remorse all the rest of my life!" His voice broke in a kind of a wail, and he threw his clinched hands up over his head.
"Oh, Phil, dear Phil! Oh, please don't," I begged. "Oh, Fee wouldn't want you to talk like this."