Arthur, who was sitting up in an arm-chair—a thing Monica had never seen him do since that terrible fall from the cliffs years ago—now pulled himself slowly into a standing position, and by the help of a stout stick, shuffled a few paces to his couch, upon which he sank breathless, yet triumphant, though his drawn brow betrayed that the achievement was made at the cost of some physical pain.
“Arthur, don’t! You will kill yourself!”
“On the contrary, I am going to cure myself—or rather, Tom and his scientific friends are going to cure me,” answered Arthur, panting a little with the exertion, but very gay and confident. “Do you know, Monica, that for the last three months I have been at Tom’s tender mercies, and you see what I can do at the end of that time? Randolph paid no end of money, I believe, to send down two big swells from London to overhaul me; and now—now what do you think is going to happen?”
“What?”
“The day after to-morrow I am going to start for Germany—for a place where there are mineral springs and things; and I am going to stay there for a year, with a doctor who has cured people worse than me. Randolph is going to pay—isn’t he just awfully good? And in a year, Monica, I shall come back to you well—cured! What do you think of that? Haven’t we kept our secret well? Why, Monica, don’t look like that! Aren’t you pleased to think that I shall not be always a cripple?”
But Monica was too utterly astounded to be able to realise all at once what this meant.
“Arthur, I don’t understand,” she said at length. “You seeing doctors—you going to Germany! Whose doing is it all?”
“Whose? Randolph’s practically, I suppose, since he finds the money for it.”