For a couple of days Kingcote had been too unwell to leave the house. For the most part he sat in his own room, with the windows darkened; his head was racked with pain. Mary’s anxious pleading to be allowed to send for aid drove him to angry resistance. He could not talk with her, and could not bear to have her sitting by him in silence. He wished to be alone.
On the third morning he did not rise at the usual time; Mary went to his room and entered. Her coming woke him from a light slumber; he said he had been awake through the night, and felt as if now he could sleep. An hour later she returned, and again he woke.
“Has any letter come this morning?” he asked.
“Yes, there is one. I thought I had better leave it till——”
“Let me have it at once!” he exclaimed fretfully. “You should not have kept it.”
There was fever on his lips, and his eyes had an alarming brightness. When Mary returned, he was sitting in expectation, and took the letter eagerly. She left the room as he began to read it.
It could not have been a quarter of an hour before Mary, who was just about to take up such breakfast as she thought he might accept, saw her brother descend the stairs.
“I have to go out,” he said. “Give me a cup of tea; I want nothing more.”
She turned into their sitting-room, and he followed her.
“But you mustn’t go out, Bernard,” she objected timidly, looking at him in distress. “You are not fit——”