“How did this happen?” asked the doctor, and without waiting for an answer he tore open the handkerchief and collar of the insensible youth, and dispatched some one immediately for a medical man. One was sent for a smelling-bottle, another for some water, and Mrs. Wilkinson soon made her appearance with a fan, and other apparatus for restoring a fainting person. But it was long before there were any signs of returning life. It was a terrible time for Reginald. It was agony to look on the motionless form, and blood-streaked countenance before him—to watch the cloud of anxiety that seemed to deepen on his master's face as each new restorative failed its accustomed virtue,—to listen to the subdued murmurs and fearful whispers, and to note the blanched faces of his school-fellows. He stood with clasped hands, and there was a prayer in his heart that he might not be called to suffer so very deeply for this sinful expression of his temper. What if he should have sent his cousin unprepared into eternity? Oh, what would he give to see one motion; what, that he had been able to restrain his ungovernable fury! There was almost despair in his wild thoughts, when at last Frank sighed faintly, and then opened his eyes. He closed them immediately, and just then the surgeon arriving, more potent remedies were used, and he was at length restored to consciousness, though unable to speak aloud. Doctor Wilkinson had him removed to another room, and after seeing him comfortably arranged, returned to Reginald's bedroom.
“Now, how did this happen?” he said.
No one spoke, and the silence was only broken by the sound of sobs from the further end of the room.
“Who did this?” asked the doctor again.
“I did, sir,” said Reginald, in a broken voice.
“Come forward. Who is it that speaks?” said Doctor Wilkinson. “Mortimer! is this some passion of yours that has so nearly caused the death of your cousin? I am deeply grieved to find that your temper is still so ungovernable. What was the matter?”
Reginald was incapable of answering, and none of his companions understood the quarrel; so Doctor Wilkinson left the room, determined to make a strict investigation the next morning.
Poor Reginald was almost overwhelmed: he knelt with his brother after their candle was extinguished, by their bedside, and both wept bitterly, though quite silently. Distress at his own fault, and his brother's new trouble, and deep thankfulness that his cousin was alive, and not dangerously hurt, filled Reginald's mind, and kept him awake long after all besides in the room were asleep.
Chapter IV.