“Thank you, I’ll go up then. Don’t let me trouble you.”
“It is noise he seems to mind so much,” said Miss Charlotte. “So if you will find your way up alone, perhaps it would be best. It is the first door you come to at the top of the last flight of stairs.”
Roy went up quietly, opened the door as noiselessly as he could, and went in. The window faced the sunset, so that the room was still fairly light, and the utter discomfort of everything was fully apparent.
“I wish you wouldn’t come in again,” said an irritable voice from the bed. “The lightest footstep is torture.”
“I just looked in to ask how you were,” said Roy, much shocked to see how ill his friend seemed.
“Oh, it’s you!” said Frithiof, turning his flushed face in the direction of the speaker. “Thank God, you’ve come! That woman will be the death of me. She does nothing but ask questions.”
“I’ve only just got back from Devonshire, but they said you hadn’t turned up to-day, and I thought I would come and see after you.”
Frithiof dragged himself up and drank feverishly from the ewer which stood on a chair beside him.
“I tried to come this morning,” he said, “but I was too giddy to stand, and had to give it up. My head’s gone wrong somehow.”
“Poor fellow! you should have given up before,” said Roy. “You seem in terrible pain.”