He wiped them away himself, and looked inquiringly at her.
“Am I so sick that it makes you cry? Is it the fever I’ve got?”
“Yes, Hugh, the fever,” and Aunt Eunice bowed her face upon his burning hands.
For a moment he lay unconscious, then raising himself up, he fixed his eyes piercingly upon her, and whispered hoarsely,
“Aunt Eunice, I shall die! I have never been sick in my life; and the fever goes hard with such. I shall surely die. It’s been days in coming on, and I thought to fight it off, I don’t want to die. I’m not prepared,” and in the once strong man’s voice there was a note of fear, such as only the dread of death could have wrung from him. “Aunt Eunice,” and the voice was now a kind of sob, “tell Adah and Sam to pray. I shall lose my senses soon, they go and come so fast; and tell Miss Johnson, (I’ve heard that she too prays) tell her when she watches by me, as perhaps she will, tell her to pray, though I do not hear it, pray that I need not die, not yet, not yet. Oh if I had prayed sooner, prayed before,” and the white lips moved as if uttering now the petitions too long left unsaid.
Then the mind wandered again, and Hugh talked of Alice and Golden Hair, not as one and the same, but as two distinct individuals, and then he spoke of his mother.
“You’ll send for her; and if I’m dead when she comes, tell her I tried to be a dutiful son, and was always sorry when I failed. Tell her I love my mother more than she ever dreamed; and tell Ad——” Here he paused, and the forehead knit itself into great wrinkles, so intense were his thoughts. “Tell Ad—no, not tell her anything. She’ll be glad when I’m dead, and trip back from my grave so gaily!”
He was growing terribly excited now, and Aunt Eunice hailed the coming of the doctor with delight. Hugh knew him, offering his pulse and putting out his tongue of his own accord. The doctor counted the rapid pulse, numbering even then 130 per minute, noted the rolling eyeballs and the dilation of the pupils, felt the fierce throbbing of the swollen veins upon the temple, and then shook his head. Half conscious, half delirious, Hugh watched him nervously, until the great fear at his heart found utterance in words,
“Must I die?”
“We hope not. We’ll do what we can to save you. Don’t think of dying, my boy,” was the physician’s reply, as he turned to Aunt Eunice, and gave out the medicine, which must be most carefully administered.