“I am glad you are my roomfellow,” she said impulsively. “I feel that by and by we shall be friends. Do give me your hand; put it on my forehead. It is true that you have a soothing touch.”
“The thing to remember just now,” said Leslie, speaking as brightly as she could, “is that it is almost twelve o’clock. It is very wrong indeed of you to be up so late; and when did you eat anything last? I happened to notice that you scarcely touched your dinner.”
“When did I eat? I can never eat when my brain is on fire.”
“Have you nothing in the room now—biscuits, or anything of that sort?”
“I have a dim sort of idea that a tin of very stale biscuits stands behind that rubbish on the top of the chest of drawers.”
“Stale as they are, they will be better than nothing. You must eat one. I shall get something better for you to-morrow. I am sure that I have been sent to this room to help you a little. Now, do take off your things, and get into bed. Try to remember that if you become seriously ill you won’t be able to help the person you mean to help; you won’t get your honors after all.”
“Are you certain? How seriously you speak!”
“Yes, I am quite certain. A sick brain never gets anything really worth having. My mother has told me that.”
“Your mother; but she must be a middle-aged woman.”
“I do not see what that has to do with it; and at any rate she is only a little over forty.”