She raised her head as if it was a weight too heavy for her to lift without difficulty.
“Oh, Bram, it’s so bad, worse than I’ve ever had before,” said she plaintively.
In her eyes there was no longer any grief; only a dull sense of great physical pain. She seemed to have forgotten everything but that burning, leaden weight at her own temples.
“Will you drink this, and then lie down for a little while?” asked he.
With the same absolute docility that she had shown to him all the evening, she took the cup from his hands, and tried to drink. But she seemed unable to swallow, and in a few moments he had to take it from her, lest her trembling hands should let it drop on the floor.
“Now, you had better lie down,” said he. “Come into the drawing-room; there’s a fire there. I saw it flickering as we came along. If you lie down on the sofa till Joan comes back, she’ll take you upstairs and put you to bed.”
He saw that she had no strength left to do anything for herself. She got up as obediently as ever; but when she reached the door a fit of shivering seized her. She staggered, fell back, and whispered as Bram caught her—
“No. Don’t make me go in there. Let me stay here.”
There was an old broken-down horsehair covered sofa against the wall in the big kitchen, and Bram hastened to make it as comfortable as he could by bringing the cushions from the drawing-room. Before he had finished his preparations she complained of feeling giddy; and no longer doubting that she was on the verge of being seriously ill, Bram led her to the sofa, and going quickly to the outer door looked out in hope of finding some one whom he could send for the doctor. He was unsuccessful, however; the rain was coming down more heavily than ever, and there was not a living creature in sight. The farm hands lived in the cottages at the top of the hill, and Bram did not dare to leave Claire by herself now that the torpor in which she had come home was beginning to give place to a feverish restlessness. So he shut the door, and seeing that Claire’s eyes were closed, he began to hope that she had fallen asleep, and crossed the floor with very soft steps to his old place by the fire.