“A week anyway, perhaps two,” Tom replied.
“Make it one, if possible,” Rex answered. “I am nothing without you—and—and—I may want to consult you about something when you get back.”
“Why not consult me now?” Tom asked; and Rex replied, “It will take too long and involves too much, and I must feel surer of myself than I do now. The fact is this hot weather or something is affecting my head, which feels at times as if there was a hornet’s nest in it, and I get so hot and then so cold. I believe it is malarious here. Anyhow, I do not feel like myself. I do not seem to have any courage or life left in me.”
Tom looked at him and saw what he had not before noticed, that he did look very worn and tired.
“It’s that confounded will,” he thought, “and the sooner he gets it off his mind the better. I’ll hurry back and have it out with him. There is not time now.”
At this point Mr. McPherson was heard in the hall, asking if Rex were going to the station with Tom, in which case he would order the carriage; otherwise he would send Nixon with the buggy.
“I’m going, yes. The drive will do me good,” Rex answered; and Irene saw the McPherson carriage go by with Tom and Rex in it, both lifting their hats to Rena, who was upon the piazza, and Tom kissing his hand to her as he looked back.
Half an hour later the carriage stopped at the gate while Rex alighted, and, after saying a few words to Nixon, who nodded and drove on, he came up the walk and rang the bell, asking for Miss Burdick.
CHAPTER XIII
REX AND IRENE
Rex was in a bad way mentally and physically. The hot weather was telling upon a constitution never very strong, and every day he felt a recurrence of the pain in his head which he likened to a hornet’s nest, and the trouble was intensified by thoughts of the will and what he ought to do.