"Dear Uncle Francis, it is a relief to find you so well," said Harry. "Sanders told me last night that he knew how to deal with these attacks, which was a little comfort. But I insist on your seeing a really first-rate doctor from town."
Mr. Francis shook his head.
"Quite useless, dear Harry;" he said, "though it is like you to suggest it. Before now I have seen an excellent man on the subject. It is true that the attack itself is dangerous, but when it passes off it passes off altogether, and during it Sanders knows very well what to do. Besides, in all ordinary probability, it will not recur. But now, my dear boy, as you are here, I will say something I have got to say at once, and get it off my mind."
Harry held up his hand.
"If it will agitate you in the least degree, Uncle Francis," he said, "I will not hear it. Unless you can promise me that it will not, you open your mouth and I leave the room."
"It will not, it will not," said the old man; "I give you my word upon it. It is this: That moment last night when you told me what you told me was the happiest moment I have had for years. What induced my wretched old cab horse of a constitution to play that trick I can not imagine. The news was a shock to me, I suppose—ah! certainly it was a shock, but of pure joy. And I wanted to tell you this at once, because I was afraid, you foolish, unselfish fellow, that you might blame yourself for having told me; that you might think it would pain or injure me to speak of it again. You might even have been intending to tell Miss Aylwin that you must revoke your invitation. Was it not so, Harry?" and he waited for an answer.
Harry was sitting on the window sill playing with a tendril of intruding rose, and his profile was dark against the radiance of the sky outside. But when on the pause he turned and went across to the bedside, Mr. Francis was amazed, for his face seemed, like Moses's, to have drunk of some splendour, and to be visibly giving it out. He bent over the bed, leaning on it with both hands.
"Ah! how could I do anything else?" he cried. "I could not bear to be so happy at the cost of your suffering. But now, oh, now——" And he stopped, for he saw that he had told his secret, and there was no more to say.
Mr. Francis, seeing that the lad did not go on with the sentence, the gist of which was so clear, said nothing to press him, for he understood, and turned from the seriousness of the subject.
"So that is settled," he said, "and they are coming, you tell me, at the end of the month. That is why you want the box hedge cut, you rascal. You are afraid of the ladies being frightened. I almost suspected something of the kind. And now, my dear boy, you must leave me. I shall get up at once and be down in half an hour. Ah, my dear Harry, my dear Harry!" and he grasped the hand long and firmly.