“Oh!”
“You see he has no interest, like some of them; he only got on by being better and cleverer than all the rest; so the Company won't listen to any excuses from him, and, indeed, he is too proud to make them.”
“He will never be captain of a ship now?”
“Captain of a ship! Will he ever leave the bed of sickness he lies on?”
“The bed of sickness! Is he ill? Oh, what have I done?”
“Is he ill? What! do you think my brother is made of iron? Out all night with you—then off, with scarce a wink of sleep; then two days and two nights chasing the Combermere, sometimes gaining, sometimes losing, and his credit and his good name hanging on it; then to beat back against wind, heartbroken, and no food on board—”
“Oh, it is too horrible.”
“He staggered into me, white as a ghost. I got him to bed: he was in a burning fever. In the night he was lightheaded, and all his talk was about you. He kept fretting lest you should not have got safe home. It is always so. We care the most for those that care the least for us.”
“Is he in the Indiaman?”
“No, Miss Fountain, he is not in the Indiaman,” cried Eve, her wrath suddenly rising again; “he lies there, Miss Fountain, in that room, at death's door, and you to thank for it.”