"It must seem a strange sort of thing to you, Jim," she said, smiling, "to have naught to do with the lamp on nights like these. I wonder if you miss going up to her (as Pat says) these nights? Do you think of her or dream of her in your sleep?"
"Now and again I do—dream I'm going up and up and up the stairs, and can't never reach the top. That's the nights when my breathing's bad. It comes to me like a dream of going on and on up the stairs, not able to breathe, and the stairs never ending. I'm glad to wake then, and find myself in bed. Sometimes I wonder whether I'll ever get up those stairs again."
Eileen's face was full of sympathy and quick comprehension.
"Do you feel like that, Jim? Do you feel very bad?"
"I don't know rightly how to say it; but I feel as though all the life and spring had been took out of me. I don't seem to have no strength inside nor out. That's all I feel. The pain don't trouble me much. But I've a feeling sometimes that it could be pretty sharp if I was to try moving about or lifting weights again. I don't know whether I shall ever get up those stairs to have a look at her again. Sometimes I feel as if my last look would be when the boat comes to take me away from the Lone Rock for good and all."
"Oh, Jim! But you're not going to leave us yet!"
"I don't know, my lass. I don't know. But I'm only a useless log here, and any day they may send and fetch me away. I sent a message by the doctor to them on shore, saying as I wasn't able to do my work, and that I couldn't look to stay on here. I've sort of expected to be took away ever since, but they haven't come for me yet."
"And where will you go, Jim, when they do take you ashore?" asked Eileen, with wide-open, wondering eyes. "Have you got any friends as would give you a bit of a home till you were fit for work again?"
"Nay, I've got naught of that sort," answered the man quietly. "You see I wasn't never one for making friends at the best of time, and the last ten years I've been in prison, or else here on Lone Rock. I suppose they'll take me into the 'Firmary till I'm a bit stronger and better; and if so be as I'm never fit to earn my bread again, I suppose I shall get kept on there the rest of my time."