On one of these brief visits home she found Philip there, and Philip saw a side of her he had never suspected; in fact, that he would never have believed could exist in one so uniformly gentle.
Mrs. Barrimore was cross and irritable; when he offered the usual caress, she put him from her, asking to be let alone.
Philip was much hurt, but he recalled many occasions on which he had repulsed his mother, and he realized now what it must have meant to her.
Mrs. Barrimore was in her Gethsemane at this time, for Colonel Lane was too ill even to give her a sign that he knew she was near him. His consciousness was clouded, and he was often so still that she had thought he had passed away.
Uncle Robert had insisted on Sir Samuel Fergusson being called in, but he had apparently been mystified by the case, and had had the honesty to say so. He, however, had expressed the opinion that the Colonel might recover, and had insisted on constant nourishment. Fortunately the patient could swallow what was given to him, and did not resist the food, which, of course, took a liquid form.
Uncle Robert took a more hopeful view than anyone of the case. He declared that nature in Colonel Lane’s case was insisting on absolute rest, even of the mental faculties. He had heard the Colonel say that after a campaign he had once slept for four days and nights without waking, and had been perfectly well at the end of that time, all the weariness of war gone. Uncle Robert cited other cases he knew of, where loss of sleep had always to be made up. His own mother had, after a week of day-and-night nursing, spent most of a week in sleep.
Now the Colonel had been on a great strain for a long time. He had spent himself for his friend Henderson. He had been ceaselessly worrying about his daughter; also (and Uncle Robert put this first) he had been condemned to resign the one woman who could have made him happy. Was it any wonder that he should be in his present position?
Uncle Robert put all this to Philip after his mother had gone back to Colonel Lane.
“Uncle, I don’t know how it is, but lately it has been brought home to me that I have been a thorn in the flesh to everyone.”
Uncle Robert simply stared at his nephew.