“Yes; and afterwards a medicine that was to calm him, for I was half mad with excitement.”
“Yes; go on.”
“Then everything is confused: I seemed to fall asleep—a long restful sleep, that was broken by my taking a long journey.”
“Yes, but that was dreaming, dear.”
“Maybe,” he said, “and then I was swimming—swimming for life—and then toiling on and on, a long weary journey under a hot sun to get my diamonds.”
“Yes, dear, fever,” said Janet, with the tears streaming down her cheeks. “Oh, Mark, what you have suffered! Rich, love, do you hear?”
“Yes—yes,” cried Rich, who seemed to be roused from a strange dream, in which she was fighting to recall another of which she had a misty recollection—a dream that troubled her on the night she took the chloral, when half mad with pain.
“You have seen and borne so much, dear,” said Janet piteously. “Was not all this about the bag of diamonds and those people a feverish dream?”
“Jenny, do you want to drive me mad?”
“My own dear old darling brother, no,” she whispered caressingly; and once more that strange half-jealous feeling swept like a hot breath of wind across Rich, making her pale face flush. “I only want to make you see things rightly, and not fret about a fancy.”