“But you don’t think you will?”
“No, I don’t. Little Hearn first; I next. Another ought to follow, to make the third.”
“You speak as easily as if it were only going out to tea, Whitney!”
“Well, I feel easy. I do, indeed.”
“Most of us would be daunted, at any rate.”
“Exactly. Because you are not going to die. Johnny Ludlow, I am getting to think a great deal; to have a sort of insight that I never had before; and I see how very wisely and kindly all things are ordered.”
If he had gone in for a bout of tumbling like the mountebanks, I could not have been as much surprised as to hear him say this. It was more in Mrs. Frost’s line than in ours. It laid hold on me at once; and from that moment, I believed that John Whitney would die.
“Look here, Whitney. It is evident by what you say about failing strength, that you must be getting worse. Why don’t you tell them at home, and go there and be nursed?”
“I don’t want to be nursed. I am not ill enough for it. I’m better as I am: here, amongst you fellows. As to telling them—time enough for that. And what is there to tell? They see for themselves I am not as strong as I was: there’s nothing else to tell.”