“I’m quite well,” he answered with a laugh. “It’s wonderful how much nicer I feel in this queer, poky little scrap of a room. I was awfully ill when I was at home. I never felt anything like it. Nurse, did you ever seem to be going through the floor?”
“No, dear, I can’t say that I have.”
“I have felt it, and it’s awful. The feeling began to come just when you arrived. I used to have it about once a day at first, but lately it seemed to be always coming. I was always going down, and down, and down, and then jumping up again, and then at last——”
“Yes, dear; tell me what you felt.”
“I heard Barbara’s voice, and you wouldn’t let her in. I called out to her, but you wouldn’t let her come. Then I cried, for I love her better than any other woman in the world, except mother, but you sent her away; and I felt so dreadful. I went down, and down, and down ever so far, and it seemed to me that Barbara would save me, but you wouldn’t allow her to come in. You were awfully cruel then. You didn’t wear your pretty blue velvet dress then. Oh, you were terribly cruel. I thought about your cruelty, and the feeling of going down got worse and worse. I thought at last that I must be sinking right through the earth, and that perhaps I’d come out on the other side, where it’s day, you know, when it’s night with us. Oh, it was awful!”
“Don’t talk of it any more, Piers—it is over.”
“But I like to tell you. Dick came into the room—dear Dick, I was glad to see him. You know, nurse, he is very strong, and I like to have him with me. He put his big strong arms round me, and then I didn’t sink any more, at least, not at first, but at last even his arms didn’t seem strong enough, and I began sinking away from them, and then you sent him out. Oh, why did you send him away? You could have gone for the medicine yourself. I called after him, but my voice was too weak. Then Dick came back, and you gave him the medicine, and he brought it to me. I was glad to take it from Dick’s hands. I didn’t mind what I did for him, for he was always my very greatest friend. It’s nice for a boy like me to have a man friend, and then, of course, he’s my own cousin. If I had died that time, he’d have been Sir Richard Pelham. I thought I was going to die after I took that medicine. I sank down faster and faster, and I looked up as I sank and I saw Dick far above me, and then I remembered no more.”
“You were very ill, child,” said the nurse.
“Did you think I was going to die?”
“I thought you were bad.”