"It's Peter, Bill," I said. "He's—ill."
In two minutes I was in the back seat with the half-delirious boy in my arms, and Bill was urging the car to her utmost speed, and we were suddenly home.
Between them, Bill and Sarah got Peter into bed. I was too frightened to be of any use. I kept thinking of the little Reynolds boy who had died of fever in that very house ... and of Peter's mother. But I didn't dare think of her long, because I could see her eyes so plainly as they looked when she said,
"You'll take good care of Peter for me, won't you, Mavis?"
Good care of Peter! For a week I had hardly thought of him. I kissed him mornings and nights, gave him his lessons, listened to his chatter, not really heeding. And I had been away so much, drunken with my new freedom, my strength, blooming like a plant in the climate that tried so many other people sorely: utterly wrapped up in my own sensations and impressions.
I went softly into the room Peter shared with Sarah. It was a different boy tossing on the bed, with that curious flush, the groping hands, talking incessantly, incoherently.
Bill, bending over him, looked up as I came in. His face was strange to me too. No, not quite. I had seen that intense, almost grim, look on that face once before—as I came out of a dark hour of agony and looked, for the first time, into two steel-blue eyes.
"Oh, what is it?" I asked very low. "Is he dangerously ill?"
"A touch of sun," he answered. "Yes, he's pretty sick."
There was nothing I could do. All that night I went in and out of the room, glad if they would let me bring them little things: water, a glass, a spoon.