He even allowed Ralph to come and look at him. He would hold his hand in a clasp that he made as limp as possible, on purpose, and would say in a voice artificially weakened: "I'm very ill, Ralph."
Dr. Ransome said he wasn't; but Mr. Waddington knew better. It was true that from time to time he rallied sufficiently to comb his own hair before Barbara was let in with her snowdrops, and that he could give orders to Partridge in a loud, firm tone; but he was too ill to do more than whisper huskily to Barbara and Fanny.
Then when he felt a little better the trained nurse came, and with the sheer excitement of her coming Mr. Waddington's temperature leapt up again, and the doctor owned that he didn't like that.
And Barbara found Fanny in the library, crying. She had been tidying up his writing-table, going over all his papers with a feather brush, and she had come on the manuscript of the Ramblings unfinished.
"Fanny—"
"Barbara, I know I'm an idiot, but I simply cannot bear it. It was all very well as long as I could nurse him, but now that woman's come there's nothing I can do for him…. I've—I've never done anything all my life for him. He's always done everything for me. And I've been a brute. Always laughing at him…. Think, Barbara, think; for eighteen years never to have taken him seriously. Never since I married him…. I believe he's going to die. Just—just to punish me."
"He isn't," said Barbara indignantly, as if she had never believed it herself. "The doctor says he isn't really very ill. The congestion isn't spreading. It was better yesterday."
"It'll be worse to-night, you may depend on it. The doctor doesn't like his temperature flying up and down like that."
"It'll go down again," said Barbara.
"You don't know what it'll do," said Fanny darkly. "Did you ever see such a lamb, such a lamb as he is when he's ill?"