One day Humphrey woke with a start, as if from a dream, and said eagerly: "Didn't you promise they shouldn't make me well?"
"Yes, my darling."
"I thought for a moment—or I dreamt—that I was getting well—and—it was——"
"It was what?" asked Sir Everard, trembling lest a wish for life should be springing up in the boy's breast, and that the regrets, whose non-existence he had marvelled at, should be going to overpower him at last.
"It was so horrible!" said the boy.
Strange that we should be subject to such sudden revulsions of feeling! The very words which set the father's mind at rest, jarred upon his feelings, and before he was aware, he had said, almost reproachfully, "Horrible, Humphrey! to stay with me?"
"You forget, father—you forget what I should be."
"But I would have made it so happy for you, my little Humphrey," burst from Sir Everard. "You should never——"
He stopped, for there was a far-away look in the boy's eyes, and he was gazing intently at the picture.