Lance meantime was having a brief transaction with the reporter of the Ewmouth paper, and then was detained by warm expressions from the other boat's crew, who had been quite disarmed, and were eager to tell of their sorrow and their sense of the kindness and 'handsomeness' of the treatment they had received—speaking to him, indeed, a great deal more freely than they could have done to his brother the Vicar, as a being far less removed from their own sphere, and giving him valuable data for dealing with their comrade, young Light, who still lay very ill. Clement had visited him in the morning, and had found him gruff and reserved, and showing decided objections to clerical visits as such.
These lads seemed more careless than free-thinking, as they allowed that Light certainly was; and they were now much impressed, and eager to speak of poor Yates's steadiness and goodness. Indeed, he had not even meant to go to the Maying, and they had been in the act of chaffing him for the abstinence which they now longed to have shared. It was the greater comfort, because his poor mother had just been brought over by her son's master, who would take charge of her till the funeral. She was in the strange mixture of fuss and grief that never shows to advantage, and when taken to see her boy was divided between gratitude at the honours paid to him and dread of their novelty, and the ground where it was easiest to meet her was his real dutifulness and affection.
Attention to the poor woman and other calls hindered Clement from any interview with Angela, whom indeed he hardly saw till the night vigil which he was to share with her. The day had not been unfavourable, except from the exhaustion produced by the afternoon heat; and Bernard's brief visit had exceedingly dismayed him. He declared that he had never seen any one look like that but a fellow who had been really killed by a disastrous blow at foot-ball, and put all his auditors in the lowest spirits by a series of tragic anecdotes; until Mr. Page, at his evening visit, declared that he saw more real improvement than he had dared to expect.
Felix could not bear to see two watchers losing their whole night's rest; and as Angela was unpersuadable, Clement, to content him, lay down dressed on the bed in the next room, and being thoroughly tired, was fast asleep, when in the middle of the night an access of pain returned, probably from some inadvertent movement in slumber. Felix forbade Angela to summon his brother; but ere long the agony increased so much, that, with a lip stiff and straightened by the struggle to suppress a cry, he said, 'Help me!' and as thinking he wanted to change his posture, she offered her arm and neck, he released another sob of anguish, and answered, 'No! no! Say—prayers—what I can't recollect.'
Her lips quivered, but no sound came. However, Clement, with true nursing instinct, had been roused, and stood over him, uttering at intervals the supplications after which he had been feeling in the distraction of acute pain, and the look of having lost something passed away. The fomentations were renewed; and at last, just as Lance was dressing to go for Mr. Page, a faint but free voice said, 'Don't go, it is getting better;' and in ten minutes more, the paroxysm had passed into a sweet sleep, which lasted till long after morning had risen.
Clement would not leave him again, but Angela refused every sign of dismissal, and sat cold, hard, stiff as a statue, with open fixed eyes, and cheeks so wan as to be almost green in the light of dawn. He watched her with almost as much anxiety as the sleeper; and when at four o'clock their watch was relieved by John and Wilmet, he followed her to her own door, and said, 'Angel, my dear child, I am afraid you are very unhappy.'
'Well, why not? Good-night, or morning.'
'Should we not both be better able to rest if you would let me do what I can for you?'
She laughed—a horrid painful scornful laugh it was. 'Much good that would do. Such a trouble as this!'
'Yet, Angel, would you but try! There is no grief or penitence too vast—'