“Yes; his own,” said Helen.
“Very well; he must be moved there, just as he is, without getting up. If you and Lord Flintshire will help me, we will do it at once. And is there a room where a nurse can sleep?”
Helen took a step nearer him.
“Is it typhoid?” she asked.
“I am afraid it may be. It looks very like it.”
CHAPTER XV
It was very early, only a little after six, and the sun had risen on a day exquisite, warm, and windless. In Martin’s room the big window had been open all night, and all night the blind had not once rattled or stirred, while the lamp on the table near it burned steady without a flicker. But though it had been light for nearly an hour, the nurse had only this moment put out the lamp, for she had been alert, quick, and watchful, unable to leave his bedside for a moment for the last four hours.
He had been very restless, attempting again and again to sit up in bed, and it had needed not only all her care but all her strength to keep him lying down. All night long, too, that terrible uncontrollable twitching of the muscles of leg and arm had gone on incessantly, and again and again, for ten minutes or more at a stretch, she had kept one arm with steady pressure over those poor, jumping knees, while she held the other ready to prevent his getting up. It had been all she could do, in fact, to manage him alone, but she had been unwilling, except at the last extremity, to rouse Nurse James from the next room, for she had had a terribly tiring day yesterday with him. Yesterday, too, a second doctor had come down from London. The case was extremely grave, but all that could be done was being done.
Martin was lying rather more quiet just now, and Nurse Baker had moved from the bed to put out the lamp and draw the blind up a little. His eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling, and he was talking in a high, meaningless drone.
“No, Karl, I can’t do it” he was saying. “I don’t see it like that. I know I shall break down, because I haven’t the slightest idea of how it begins, and I can’t leave out the beginning. And father is angry with me, and when he is angry he frightens me. Hasn’t Stella come to see me? I had such a headache, you know; like a great piece of hot iron, you know, right inside my head. They took off the top of my head to put it there. I’m frightened of him when he’s like that. Where’s Stella? No; Lady Sunningdale was in the bird of para—para—parachute—I don’t know, in that hat anyhow, you fool with Sahara. That’s what made it so hot, and I can’t endure English chants. Oh, father, don’t, don’t. It isn’t my fault.”